A few weekends ago I set off on a journey I was completely not prepared for . . . the trek to Fort Ratangad. I had been trekking several times before, I had my toilet paper, 4 liters of water, a trekking backpack stuffed with people’s blankets and necessities and I thought “Oh yea I got this . . . it’s only a 2 day trek” and for the most part I did have it, but nothing prepared me for trekking with 30 Indians to an abandoned fort filled with adventures of monkeys and some of the most intense partying I have ever witnessed.

The hike to the fort was quite steep but only lasted a few hours (and would have been less minus the stragglers ;) ). We crossed over rivers, up sketchy half hung rusty ladders and stairs carved in stone, eventually reaching the Fort with the breathtaking 360 view of everything beneath us. Just imagining the Maharashtran Fort being constructed thousands of feet high atop a mountain, thousands of years ago, was mind blowing. The Fort had ancient caves filled with Ganesh statues (the god of wisdom and success portrayed as an elephant) of which we spent the night in . . . twas kind of creepy.

Yea this is safe...

steps carved out of stone

The Fort

The cave we slept in

Creepy Cave

Conquered

Although we were exhausted and laid on our oh so comfortable stone cave floor to rest our eyes we shortly realized why Indians like to trek . . . the partying at the top—the never ending camp songs sung at the top of their lungs, ghost stories, and just plain yappin away around the fire. Despite the complete absence of sleep we got that night, we woke up to a beautiful sunrise and hiked all the way around the fort, circling the tip of the mountain, like in some lord of the rings type of epic movie.

Oh I forgot to mention that just before we were going to bed, a great samaritan, or should I say forester—Stephen—decided to share his wealth of Parle-G crackers with one of the fort monkeys . . . well one Parle-G apparently wasn’t enough for this monkey and he chased Stephen around the mountain, eventually coming to our group and jumping on Lindsey’s face in efforts to steal the camera out of her hands and then smack . . . Jibron drop kicks the lil guy and he goes scurrying off. It didn’t stop there . . . as we started to walk away 1, 2, 10, then 20 monkeys appear out’ve the grassy hills right above us. We ran back to our cave, the monkeys following shortly behind, and eventually they settled on ravaging through our food (and garbage) taking everything they could find.

Crazy monkeys ransacking our food supply

 Oh yes, this was an epic trek full of crazy monkeys, new friends, and anything but sleep J

Animals Encountered Around Pune! Kinda Ridonculous

 

Pune Cityscape

Monkeys atop Fort Ratangad (We trekked there)

Is that a pack of Parle-Gs in his mouth...Stephennn

Fox and the Hound type of thing

Durshet Village

               

Me and a crazy food stealing monkey 

Bee Farm

 That's the queen...she has the life--thousands of men working for her ..o and she gets pregnant and the male dies . . . ;) I wouldn't want that though

Leslie got her puppiesss :)

Day in the Life . . . this is why I have no time to blog

7:00AM  Wake-up (far from the usual 10 hours of sleep a night)

7:45AM    Rickshaw to school

8:00AM Arrive at the program center that's just for our study abroad group J. . . we get breakfast here and just hang out throughout the day between classes. The center staff are basically our family—take us to the doctor, console us, feed us, and give us annoying rules . . . 

The Center!

Oh Abé . . .

Coconuts!! 40¢ents

8:30AM School--Campus

Ferguson College in the heart of Pune

Oh Kitty

Orientation: First and last time we were found in the library

Afternoon Class and exploring the streets

whaaa?

Evening

Basketball crew

Sometimes have painting class (no pic)

7:30PM Arrive Home

This is actually a freaking ant hill . . . in our home

My American Roomies

Our roomies, Shraddha and Shivani's bday

9:30PM Badminton time!

Life has been good here thus far. Everyone is super sweet and I must get asked at least 15 times day how my eyes are doing as I contracted some gross India eye dust allergy 4 weeks ago which causes my eyes to swell, creating layers of flaky wrinkly skin. Yes, this is exactly why I have not posted photos of my beautiful face and have been rockin shades all day and night to protect my eyes from the dust . . . wearin em all throughout my classes and even when i'm sleeping...whatta G. Yea i’m pretty sure India’s discussing my expedited departure in fear of deterring tourists. Despite this disability, I have had an amazing time full of rock climbing, basketball, field trips, badminton, good friends, painting, motorcycle rides, monkeys, and anything but homework J

Just as I finally gave up on my hunt for a rock climbing gym—searching on the internet for a gym since the day I decided to study abroad 6 months ago and wandering around Pune only to find abandoned gyms—I discovered from a friend of a friend that hisss friend (yes lots of friends) built a bouldering cave in his house nearby. Skeptical as all my other attempts were to no avail I told myself Harmony don’t get too excited  . . . you might just have to cry yourself to sleep again . . . I hopped on a motorcycle with a friend and arrived at a small house wondering where the wall would be. As I walked inside, there it was . . .  like the shining mountains of gold discovered by Aladdin—and like Appu I couldn’t hold back and had to touch the wall . . . sigh* alas there was a homemade beautiful sea of holds, chalk, and crashpads. Ah, I was home.

Thanks to Tuhin and his climbing guru father I have a place to climb whenever I so desire—which is always. Tuhin is the number one climber in India and him and his father are the pioneers of climbing in Pune. They bolted all the outdoor routes, house the only indoor gym in Pune—a city of 4.2 million people—and are one of the few people that actually climb in a 200 mile radius. I feel like I entered an underground club that is in its infancy just waiting to catch fire . . . unfortunately its been in its infancy for over 20 years. I plan to do a documentary film on rock climbing in Pune and the difficulty faced with lack of facilities and it not being recognized as a sport. What got me hard was discovering that Tulhin could count the number of Indian girls that climb on one hand . . . sigh.

Enough of the tear jerker talk . . . this definitely qualified as the best day in India

Felt sooo good after 3 weeks of not climbing

Tuhin!

The awesome cave