Hiking!

Today I went on my first hike in India, and it was a tough one!! The advanced hiking club at school organizes weekend day and overnight hikes, so I joined them for the hike today. Five people were there, including our staff leader, Mr. Devin. I was the only girl!

So, we set off from dorms at 8:30 in the morning, stopped by the school office where we called Mr. Nagarwalla (the trail expert), to find out what hike would be good. So, with directions in hand, we set off on the road.

We walked uphill on the road for a long ways (around 10 km?) and then we went through some passes on the road. Then, we went through a small village and got to the path. When we arrived on the trail, we hiked down the valley for about 3 hours. We had to stop and do LOTS of leech checks because those little bugs leap onto your shoes when you are walking near streams or the ground is damp.... I don't know how they do it... they are everywhere!!!!!! So, I probably found about 10 leeches crawling on my shoe, I found two leeches crawling around on my sock, and one leech crawled up my leg to attack right below the back of my knee. I was informed by another hiker about that leech.... I'm sure it was very happy because it got quite bloated, having sucked my blood.

So, after descending into the valley, we finally arrived at the village, around lunch time. There, we ate rice and dahl for lunch (10 rupees) and drank some DELICIOUS chai tea.. sooo yummy....

After lunch, we began the long journey back up. It was quite sunny and very humid, so we all got pretty sweaty and sunburned!!! Unfortunately, we ran out of water too... but we had chocolate!

Once we got back to the road, we went out another kilometer to get some water and a snack (around 4 o clock now). More chai tea, lots of mist everywhere! Luckily it didn't rain the entire day!

So, once we had gotten to the road, we had a long way to walk back home! We finally arrived at around 6:40. We did stop on the side of the road to take a break though.... which was very much appreciated.

So, all in all, it was a very fun experience for my first hike, quite a long hike too! The total mileage was 50 kilometers.. but I think we did a little extra distance when we walked to the village in the afternoon to get some tea... so, it was pretty long. I think around 30 ish miles. And, yeah.... there was LOTS of climbing. So it was quite a challenge for me, but I held up fine with the group :)

Oh, and it was utterly gorgeous. The local people were so nice, and the hillside was spectacular!

So, I will definitely be back for more hiking.