Rayreshwar, Nakhind, Aswalkhind

Yet another weekend and I already knew i would be trekking.  It's amazing how quickly you find friends while you are trekking... I met Jitendra during vasota trek and here I was today.. part of his chain mail for rayreshwar trek. Being part of this mail trail ment we were up for some serious trek as Jitu and his gang always does.... everytime Jitu asks me "have you done khutyache daar? mahipat? sumar? rasal?"  shake of head in 180 degrees follows... "sir while you are wearing a test cap I was still playing T20".
                     Rayreshwar, holy place for every maharashtrian, the place where Shivaji maharaj took pledge of creating a independent hindu empire.  We started planning with 15 guys and on day of trekking only two appeared... me and Jitu. We decided to carry on the plan and started on friday evening from swargate bus stop. The bus to Bhor started 30mins late and we were almost certain that we would miss bus from bhor to base village.. but maharashtra state transport follows a different time zone and next bus was late as well..like minded people working together always produce high results ;-)
Reached korle village at 9:30 and we had a whole village surrounding us, making us aware of dangers lying ahead..." are you nuts? don't go right now, tiger has been spotted few days back in the vicinity, you better start tomorrow morning ", we called our contact in rayreshwar and he gave us a green signal" Grab a stick for your protection and come up there is nothing to worry about" thus a long walk on a semi tar road in a cold night followed.
Reached rayreshwar and gopal jungam's house at about 12. Simple but delicious food was waiting for us.. few raw onions steamed in  the earthen oven and a spicy hot curry, we were in heaven. sound sleep and we were ready for tomorrow.

We planned early morning start but cold weather and warmth of the old house delayed our wake up ,finally we started at about 9am. Aswalkhind and nakhind was the target but first we had to find namdev, guide who knew route to Aswalkhind.. aswal in marathi means bear and khind is a narrow ridge where two mountains meet... ridge where bears dwell and which is a shortcut from konkan to varandha region.
Namdev was missing... 2hrs wait... few cups of tea... tiger stories and meeting with a guy who had fallen off the cliff and lost sensation in his lower body. He was carried in a mattress as if lump of wheat, gopal was telling... we could not hospitalize him as that would be too expensive for his family.. we left him to die, gopal added. How helpless we thought but then his wife told us that he still works in farm and has ploughed the whole farm himself... salute is all we had to offer.  Namdev finally arrived at 11 and with half day wasted, as per gopal its impossible to do both nakhind and aswalkhind "takes 4 hrs to reach nakhind" . we were rethinking on our plan and decided that we will do nakhind only. Tiger's presence meant we had to reach home before it gets dark. 

So started walking again, after observing our walking speed for few kms gopal changed his thoughts "if you are walking like this, at our pace we will be able to do both and come back home before it gets dark"  he has clearly underestimated us.
walk of about 10kms and we were at the jungles opening... footprints of the tiger and the bear were everywhere near the pond.. tiger stories were not lie and we started dreaming of coming face to face with the magnificent animal... and then being eaten :-)
after some time reached a cliff from where nakhind was visible... a small hole in the rock was all it was and its not possible to descent to that place left us disappointed... we had wasted 3 hrs for nakhind which meant we wont be able to descend aswalkhind and reach kamthe village in daylight.. obviously me and jitu didnt want to fight hungry bear in dark and cold jungle with stick in our hand. we asked namdev to take us to the point from where we can see the route and aswalkhind... an hour walk through thorny jungle and we reached a mountain top near pathshila... aswalkhind was visible at a distance and a step slope to reach it was in sight, we made the right choice we said to each other.. there was no way we could have descend it and reached village without dinning with wild animals.

A long walk of 10-15kms back to rayreshwar and homely comforts of gopals house... reached back home at 8.  Gopal was happy to have walked with someone as swift as us for a change... and we were happy because of the food and now we know the route... we decided to come back with our folks and take on mighty aswalkhind.... till then back to hibernation :-)