Unseen Goa In detail - Day 2

Hot tea at 5:25AM. You need to be ready by then to have it. I had to forget sleeping till late for the rest of the camp. After a warm up, We were ready for the rock climbing and rappeling. This was my second rock climbing task after the one I did in Nilshi, Mumbai. I had fun doing it.

To get acclamatised to walking, we did a short trek to Dona paula, a lovely place. We walked from Miramar beach which was right behind the camp site for couple of kms. We reached a garden facing the beach. The guide who had come along with us, asked us to keep our lugguages on the benches and settle down on the grass. Quick round of short introduction of all the participants, about their previous treks through YHI. We were very few freshers. Majority of them had atleast done one in the past. I was surprised to know that many had done Sarpass, Sarkundi treks more than once. The age group was also diverse. Youngsters naturally out numbrered, but none the less there were many who were here enjoying their retired life. There were 26 guys from IIT BHU, Varanasi. 4 from Nagpur both doing their BTech. Many from bangalore including us. The guide had to choose amoung us as a leader, deputy leader and a environment leader. Rohit the most common name suggested for all the posts... I still don't understand why. Finally we had Vishal from BHU as a leader, Santhosh Sir as deputy leader who was accompanied by his beautiful wife Alka Aunt. Rohit had to become the environment leader. So you know his job... :) Interesting. By now we had atleast few names registered. The group started moving towards Dona paula. The sun was scorching forcing us to quench the thirst with a lime soda. Climb up a few steps, a lovely sight of miramar beach and the shore getting dreched by those small waves.

We boarded a bus from dona paula to reach the base camp. After lunch, we submitted our extra luggage. UNO had started playing its charm on us. We had a breifing session by Manoj Joshi. I was surprised to see this man, whom I imagined to be a young man after listening to him over fun, was a young at heart man with so much energy and zeal. He educated us about the history and geography of Goa. Noting down the route map for the trek which was to start from next day. Snake show was scheduled just to make us aware of the common snakes found in the goan forest. Lil about what has to be done if we come across this creatures and handle the situation if one gets kissed by them. Lotsa myths more than facts. Awesome queries and equally interesting replies. Our hero was brought in a sack, we were assured that it was a non venomous snake so guts played less role, all liked feeling his skin, holding him, posing with him. But the snake charmer was always careful enough to make sure that his dear darling was not hurt by any of us. Dinner time, yummy!!!!