Nagala 14 - March 1, 2009

It was a perfect day for a great trek. I Got up at 4 AM in the morning, had a nice shower in the (not so cold) water. Took all the necessary things, packed my backpack and vrrrooooom! (with my bike). All the 100 CTCians assembled at Koyambedu at 4.40 AM. Organizers Ram, Balaji, Peter and others were checking with the cars and bikes available and by 5.30 AM get set go!

Morning Ride

The ride was splendid; bikers might know the value of early morning ride. All the cars and bikes forming a trail along the NH road, it was great to ride that too as group it was awesome. Near Uthukkottai we stopped for an amazing tea and from there towards Nagalapuram in Puttur highway.




The Start
Yippy! We reached Nagalapuram; wow! what a place it was fresh air, birds chirping all over and there were big mountains visible from the village (didn’t know that I had to climb them). Again the organizers ensured that all the participants got their breakfast, lunch, snacks and last but not the least fruits & water. We all had our breakfast before the start, packed our backpacks with lunch, snacks, fruits and water. All set to for a great trek!

Pool #1

We walked along the rugged terrain to reach the base. Peter, Balaji and couple of other guys reached the base by clinging to Peter’s Scorpio, by seeing this scene I got reminded of some typical “masala” movies’ villain gang.



We reached the to-be-constructed dam/reservoir; they had built up a wall full of smooth rocks. Believe me the wall was as tall as a two storey building. Here I thought “anyways only one wall, from there it’s going to be an easy trail”, but that was not the case anyways. I saw Peter and some of the guys carrying a roll of sleeping mat with them, I didn’t have a clue for that, anyways let’s see later. It was easy for me to climb up but only after a great tussle I could descend the rock-wall. I was accompanied all the time by two guys Aswin and Satya. Awesome guys to be with, but they are the best leg-pullers.




There at the base of the dam we clicked some pictures with all 100 CTCians. From there it was a walk deep into the forest. We crossed numerous water streams where we could find good number of fishes and man the water was so clear. Aswin had brought his camera mobile with which we clicked some snaps of these natural beauties. After about some 30 minutes we reached the first pool. Woooooo! I had never seen such a place all my life. By the time we reached people had started swimming in the pool. It was a small pool of water but again crystal clear and a big rock just in the middle of the water, as if this rock was made to stand just to be of service for those who did head- diving. I didn’t enter the pool for some obvious reasons, which you guys might have guessed by now. Peter, Rekha, Divya, Sujai, Naresh, Prabhu and Guru were some of those who did head-diving. Aswin, Satya and others were just playing in the water. Aswin was trying to do some swimming. I was just capturing these moments and enjoying the cool breeze. Mother Nature was at her best.




Pool#2 – Highlight of Nagala – 14!

After finishing some great swimming, we again started to go deep into the forest by trailing along the river. This time the forest was dense and the path was a bit narrow. Sometimes we had to bend ourselves to the foliage. We had our talkative Aswin, so we were just chatting and by the mean time no one was in front so I “thought” we missed the trail. I was standing and to me there was no way but to walk through the small river stream. Here comes the hero, suddenly I compared myself to Indiana Jones and walked in to the water. Aaaarrrrggghhh! The rock underneath was so slippery that I could not place my foot. Yes I Slipped! My beloved Aswin was seeing this and was pulling my leg all along. By then we heard some voice and we started walking and at once we came across a stream of running water. We filled our empty bottles; the water was so pure and tasting like heaven. There we clicked some snaps and moved on.




We reached to a place which was slightly crowded by our CTCians. I thought it was a lunch break; no it was a heart-break. We all were standing in front of a pool, which was just 40 feet deep! We had to cross this pool in order to go to continue. Again Peter, Guru, Naresh, Sujai and others (pardon me for forgetting other names) were at their service. These guys transported the bags, shoes and helped the non-swimmers to cross the pool. All the non-swimmers were transported with the help of the rolled-up sleeping mat (remember, me telling about this). It was not a bank on the other side of the pool, rather it was a steep rock and we had to climb that just like a garden lizard. This is where I had to talk about unity, optimism and hope. When there is a threat for life human-beings unite. This is a true statement and we CTCians proved it. No one had to organize things; it all came natural and voluntary. We formed a human chain to lift the people who had some difficulty in climbing the rock and more importantly we transported all the back-packs by hand passing them.

I feel proud to be one among this group. CTC rocks!

The Real Trek

After we finished the 40 feet deep pool, we walked along the river. The path was extra slippery and I was extremely careful with my legs. I was succeeded by a guy (again I forgot the name) who was wearing the famous Woodland’s Trekking shoes and he was very much uncomfortable with it. He was actually pointing at my slippers and I heard him telling his wife “huh slippers are the best”. I was actually full of pride for choosing these slippers over shoes. Man again I slipped! There is a saying in Madras tamizh “over scene odambukku aavadhu” (too much of showing off is bad for health). Then again I continued as nothing had happened. We walked and came to a halt because we didn’t know which way to go, finally someone from the top told us we had to climb the steep rock path. It was almost 80 degrees and in my group Kannan was the first guy to climb, who gave me a helping hand.


Again Mr. Indiana Jones came inside me (this time nothing comical happened) and I was helping others to climb up the steep rock. From there we reached a small pool which was six feet deep and it was neck deep for me, believe me it was awfully cold. Again I got wet and we continued our walk for some time and it was time for lunch.

Lunch and Pool #3

I was not hungry but still you will get tempted when others eat, so I was no different. Only then I realized I had left my bag with Aswin and Satya, so I had to survive on the fruit (courtesy: Kannan). After some few minutes Aswin and Satya joined me. From there we started and immediately I learnt that we had to climb a steep rock. It was not all rock; the steep was made up of some brushwood and slippery sand. All of us were very careful with our steps. From there we reached a very small pool of water and yet again it was neck deep still we were able to manage. The water was dam cold, we actually need that. After some 10 minutes of walk we reached a shady place where Peter, Divya and some other guys were resting. We took some rest under the shade, I took a short nap. Where others were busy eating their fruits and Ashok was instructing and coaching Magesh to take snaps on his Nikon D-SLR. From there we moved as a group and the path was not that tedious, just on foot.




Natural Theme Park

We had to walk some 20 minutes to reach another awesome pool and a water slide constructed by Mother Nature. The place was simple astounding, 15 feet slide and beneath it was a pool of about 20 feet deep. Diwakar had already plunged into the water before our arrival just in order to know the depth. After his conformance Sujai, Guru, Peter, Karthick and others started head diving. People had started diving and Peter was busy doing something, only then we realized that he is going to slide and others followed his suite. After they finished playing for some 20 minutes, we started to trip down the path which led to pool #1.

Grand Finale

After some 20 minutes trail we reached Pool #1 where the front runners were already playing and diving in the water. Aswin, Satya, Guru, Divya, Sujai were in the water again. I was just sitting on a rock and was going through the day’s memory. After about half an hour it was final whistle from the organizers and we had to bid adieu to Nagalapuram. We started and soon we reached the dam where we had started the day.
Turning back, WOW! What a day it was for me. I personally liked this trek and enjoyed to the fullest extent possible.
There should be many places like Nagalapuram just in and around us, I would always love to visit those places and bring back some fond memories like this.

Write-up: Krishna Prasaad

Organizer: Peter

Participants: DIWAKAR, Peter Van Geit, Naresh,Balaji Seshan, Ashok,yashdugar, Reddy,ram prasad, Ansar, Sujai Karthik, Divya, Kutral Ramesh, Karthik Arumugam, sunitadugar,Ramesh Azhagar, Suresh, Balaji Narjala, Sethu Sankar R, Ravi Alagappan, Rahul Sood, Badrinarayanan R, Raghav Wate, Bhargava Reddy, Vignesh Kendan, N.M.R. Saran, Sarath Kaza, S Sriram, Dinesh Kumar, prasanna, Libu Balakrishnan, Anandraj B, Pradeep, Siddharth, Karthik.K.G, Rekha, Rajesh Kumar K, Vasanth S, Santhosh Kumar A, Karthikeyan R, Vinodha Jeyanthilal, Ramki T, Mustansir Lokhandwala, vinothKumar.A, Suresh Kumar J, Jegan Sekar, jayaram singh, Gurumoorthi, Ramachandran.B,Harish R, Gokul K, Hitesh K, Rahul P, Chandravel , B.Anand, Karthick Sundararajan,R.Ramprakash, muthukumar prakasham, Raghavendraa, Sekhar Jajimoggala, Palanikumar R V , sathish kumar, Prijesh K G, shunmuga.raja, Aswin Anand, Milinda Lakkam , Kamal Tejnani, Raju Ramalingam, Mélina Wist, suman, vinod, Biju VK, menakamk, Rajkumar V, Jasmin Ruby.S, Heman D Vora, Tarannum Abbasi, Nanda Kumar, HAREESH PODUVAL, NITHIN PODUVAL, Gopal V, Sathyanarayana Naidu, Prem, KrishnaPrasaad, Veeraswamy Selvam, sravan kumar, Lalit Bhootra, Girish Chandak, RajaBaskar Thangaraj, Kannan R, Venkat Ramkutty, Ravi Shankar, Ravi Teja Sanampudi, Uttam Kumar K, Bala Murali Krishna, Selva Pandian, D Satyanarayane Reddy, Prabhu S, Nevil Andrews, Sudhir T Balaji, Himabindu, Suresh Nanjappan, Ragupathy, Mahesh KM

Image Library:
Biju
Santhosh Kumar
Arian Sudhs
Aswin Anand
Karthick Sundararajan
Bala Murali Krishna

Another post on Nagala 14 in here