Conquering Kudhuremukh Part1
I didn’t have any plans for the weekend as I had lots of work on Friday… and for the weekend too.
Then on Friday, I came out of office around 9:00 PM to go home. Venki (my roommate) called me and asked me to wait as he had something to carry home and needed the bike for that. Then he came out with two trekking bags with five sleeping bags inside.
As soon as I saw that, I asked him why he was carrying them. He said, “Maga, Kuduremukh trekking hoguttiddeve… baruttiya?”
It was a testing time for me—since I had code delivery and lots of things pending—but I couldn’t resist. Then in a minute, I was ready. We went to HR to collect another sleeping bag for me, but he had already left. Later, we searched the whole of Mangalore to buy one… couldn’t get it… then I decided to go without a sleeping bag.
The next challenge was to complete my work. I came back to office after dinner and worked until 2:00 AM.
We were supposed to catch the bus to Kuduremukh at 4:30. So we thought—if I sleep now, there’s no chance I’ll wake up. We tried not to sleep. We started watching TV. At 3:00 AM, we started watching a match…
6:00 AM—suddenly I woke up. We were late! Then I just stuffed some clothes and left the house. Great start, isn’t it?
We were supposed to reach a place named Samse, around 20 km beyond Kuduremukh—the starting place of our trek. The boys from Bangalore were to reach there by 8:30, and we were supposed to reach at the same time. It was around a 4-hour drive from Mangalore, so we would reach around 10:30, that too if we got the bus on time.
Since Samse doesn’t come under any mobile coverage, Venky’s house was our center point of communication. So we called his brother and told him that we had just left Mangalore and would reach Samse by 10:30. The guys, after reaching Samse, called Venky’s brother and got the news that we’d be late.
At the bus stop, we learned that the 6:15 bus had already left and the next one was at 7:45—but that driver would stop for breakfast at Karkala for 30 minutes. So we caught another bus and reached Karkala.
We were waiting for the bus to Kuduremukh… suddenly I heard someone shouting my name. I looked around. Venky was drinking tender coconut and asked me to get into the bus. I got in—still wondering who called me—then I saw Shilpa, Tripti (PMI INFY), and her roommates. They were going to the Horanadu temple.
Me and Venky got down at Samse; they all continued. Yup—we caught that 6:15 bus at Karkala!
Finally, at 10:30, we both reached Samse. The guys were waiting since 7:30—they had reached a bit early. Isn’t that an adventure by itself?
Then we started the actual trek… but soon realized we didn’t have a proper vessel for cooking. Thank God, we could buy one there.
Then we entered the jungle… just 10 minutes in, we were lost. We didn’t know which way to go. We only knew we had to reach a place called Lobo’s House (a priest who used to live there). We didn’t know the distance, but the only goal was to reach Lobo’s House by 6:30 PM. After that, it would get dark—and difficult.
Each of us had 10–15 kg on our back. We were tired after just 30 minutes. The sun was hot—we were sweating, hungry, tired—but decided to continue till 1:30 PM, and then take a break. So everyone had one goal in life—walk until 1:30!
After what felt like forever, our watch showed 1:30. Yo! Everyone was so happy. Threw their bags down and lay on the road (if you can call it a road). Then we had some chapatis that Sudeep’s mom had prepared—had lots of them with jam, pickles, etc.
At 2:00 PM, we started again. We met a very old man in the jungle. He asked us to follow him and said he’d show us the way. We started walking briskly. It was hard to keep up with him. After 30 minutes, we took a break and he left.
Then we were lost again. One of us went ahead and luckily found someone who showed us the way to Lobo’s House. Then came a very steep hill. Everyone collapsed after climbing it. There was a small stream with very cold water—we drank it.
After 5–6 breaks, we reached Lobo’s House. We weren’t sure it was the right place, but since it was already 5:30 PM, we decided to spend the night there.
We prepared to face the night in the jungle. Collected water from a nearby stream, gathered wood for cooking and a campfire. Luckily, the house (which we thought was Lobo’s House) had some stock of wood.
Then we started planning for Sunday and for tonight. We decided to start cooking at 8:00 PM. The menu: Tomato soup and B³ (Bisi Bele Bath). I started the fire since I had experience. We had nice tomato soup—hot, spicy, and tasty. It was dark and cold—so the soup was great!
Then I was assigned to maintain the campfire started by Chetan, and he took over cooking. He made Bisi Bele Bath—it was great.
Then came the time to sit around the fire and talk—about anything: Infy, girls, marriage, future, money, sex… everything. It was already 9:00 PM. Some of us were sleepy, so we split into two groups of three. One team would guard the other for 3.5 hours.
Since I was in the second team, I slept. My shift started at 1:30 AM. I had Venky and Papu (Sudeep) with me. We had fun talking about girlfriends, money, work, and Infy. We built a big fire. By 4:30 AM, it was our time to sleep again. And we did.
We got up at 5:30. By then, Chetan had already fetched water from the stream in the dark. He and the others had prepared food—Concrete and some noodles. And thus, my second day in the jungle began.
