Conquering Pakkamalai

Written by: SaiKeertana Ganta

Today was finally the day. The yearly camp event of hiking had returned. Hiking was one of our favorite group activities. We would sing songs endlessly and feel the thrill of adventurous hikes together. Last year the geckos traveled to Gingee fort and had the opportunity to learn the rich history behind the structures, and this year we were ready to take on a new adventure. Our hike this year was led by a French uncle named Anand Giri, who loved hiking less known trails. His passion was hiking and he said that he had explored most of the mountains that surrounded Arunachala. This year, we went on a hike located in the Pakkamalai forest reserve. Anand uncle mentioned that he had hiked this mountain about 20 times. This hike leads to two different temples after a challenging trek up the mountain. 

Early in the morning, all the geckos piled into our bus with motivation and excitement. Before we left Haritachala, Sruti akka distributed juices and chocolate to all of us and we also received laddus from ammamma. We were also given homeopathy like last year to prepare us for the hike. We stuffed all our special snacks in our bags to enjoy during the hike. Ready to dominate this hike, the geckos played telugu songs endlessly and we sang our hearts out on our journey there. The poor driver had to hear our out-of-tune singing for about an hour. But as we drove to the forest, we all saw parts of India we’ve only ever seen in the movies. Vast lands of vibrant greenery, where each patch was a different color of green.

The scenery as we drove was so beautiful, and we all peered out the windows staring at the beauty in front of us.  Once we arrived at the base of the mountain with water bottles in hand and snacks in our bags, we first sat down to have breakfast. What we had forgotten was that these hike areas were always scattered with monkeys - our biggest fear. Okay I lied, Geetu is an exception because she’s not afraid of any animals. As we set up our plates and ate yummy pulihora and perugu annam, two dogs creeped up next to Geetu. The smell of the food was a universal invitation to all the animals around us. The uncles took some food to the dogs so that they could also enjoy breakfast with us.

We spent a good half an hour eating food and drinking malt before we started on our hike. When the time came around to start our hike, we waved goodbye to Sruti akka, Sweety akka, Jahu akka, Dharani and Ramakrishna anna as they were staying at base camp to receive us when we finished. With cheesy smiles and sweat already dripping off our faces we followed Anand uncle up the stairs that started our hike.

To our surprise the stairs lasted for maybe 3 minutes. As soon as we turned the first corner, the stairs transformed into huge rocks. These rocks were approximately at a 75 degree incline and since we were determined to experience this hike, the only correct way to go was up. Sphurana led the whole group and periodically would yell “Chalo chalo” if she saw us moving too slow or taking a break for too long. Although we were told that we only had to climb the 75 degree incline for 45 minutes, it felt close to two hours. Every 5 steps we were reminded that we ate too much breakfast, but who could resist ammammas delectable food?

Halfway up the mountain all the geckos were sweating buckets, demolished the juice Sruti akka gave us and rationed our water with Pradeep uncle and Uday anna, leaving us with a total of 0 drops of water left to drink. At that exact moment, the sun decided to shine its brightest leaving us with no shade to rest under. Before we got too far, we noticed that one of the dogs that was eating breakfast with us, decided to join us on our hike. Whenever we got too separated this dog would guide us to the rest of the group. And whenever we stopped to rest, it would always find a place to rest with us. So we hiked with our new friend singing Baahubali songs to motivate us through the challenging hike.

A few minutes later and 4 more of Spuhrana’s “Chalo Chalo”s we made it to the first temple. This temple rested on flat rocks and finally gave us a breezy place to rest. As Hasita and Upasana were hiking up their last few steps to reach the flat rock, a monkey creeped up behind the temple and charged in their direction. Hasita and Upasana were the safekeepers of the DJI camera that they were strictly instructed not to lose. So when the monkey charged for the bag that the DJI camera was in, Hasita and Upasana reacted quickly and snatched the bag away. As they both recovered from that event, we thought to sit and enjoy the breeze. Quickly enough, Anand uncle told us that this was only the first temple. He pointed somewhere in the sky so far away and calmly said “So now we have to hike to that temple”. 

Our eyes followed his arm to his finger and finally caught a glimpse of what was our final destination. It seemed like the hike from where we were to where we needed to go would take around 3 days, and 12 more water bottles. We asked Anand uncle if the rest of the hike was going to be flatter land than the first half of the hike, and he promptly responded with “Yes it's mostly flat land”. With some perseverance and adrenaline, we followed Anand uncle back into the forest. Along the hike, we kept finding these long centipedes that were red. Without a name to refer to them, we called them “Erra Chokkas” (red shirts). So from time to time we’d all hear a “Watch out don’t step on the Erra Chokkas”.   All the uncles and Uday anna were so helpful in motivating us and ensuring we didn’t fall off the sides of the mountains. Despite Uday anna being as tired as we were, he still managed to capture the moments where we made it to each temple. Honestly, even though the geckos found this hike challenging, we need to applaud Ramakrishna Uncle for hiking with us. He made sure that no gecko was left alone and waited for everyone to catch up. 

As soon as we made it to the viewpoint before the last step of reaching the temple at the very top, we saw an old man living at that height on the mountain. We asked him where he gets his water, and he pointed to a little pond where Pradeep uncle was dipping his feet in. As we all laughed and prepared to hike our last bit to the very top of the mountain, we were faced with a challenge.   The last 5 minutes of the hike was a steep rock with two rods on either side to hold and climb. As the sun was blistering that day, the metal rods were too hot to hold. With no other way than up, the geckos persevered through the toughest part of the hike and overcame the big rock.

As soon as we reached the top we enjoyed the cool breeze that was hiding from us during the hike. Soon we made our way over to the next temple. As we all sat there, Sphurana had mentioned how she still had her juice box and needed to discard it. Sudheer uncle thought of a smart plan and started to unravel Sphuranas bag which also had her laddus. After we all took small bites of it, uncle fed the rest to some monkeys that were surrounding us. With each bite, the monkeys became more and more eager getting closer to uncle as he broke off parts of the laddu. At one point the monkeys came very close to uncle so he threw the laddu bag in his opposite direction. Unfortunately, Anvitha and Namita were both sitting in that opposite direction and immediately became the monkeys' target. As the monkey ran over to the bag, the geckos ran away from the temple faster than ever. As we laughed and jokingly teased Sudheer uncle, we found ourselves saying bye to the cool breeze and heading down to reunite with the rest of our Haritachala family. 

On the way down Anshu and I both led the way as we said, “If we stop we’ll never start again”. Anshu and I became separated from the rest of the geckos and were the first ones heading down. To our surprise as we were almost down, a pack of goats were heading up the mountain. Anshu and I panicked as we saw their horns and tried to clear a path for them to pass us. Even though we thought we were being generous enough to stand to the side, the goats thought we were more interesting, so all the 20 goats began strutting in our direction at once. I was laughing out of fear and Anshu was making funny comments out of fear such as “Oh my god who is this side character goat coming from this angle”. Soon we found a gap and took our chance and squeezed by this goat family.

10 minutes later, Anshu and I heard a familiar “ OO OOO” from the bottom of the hike. Knowing we were closer to reunite with all the akkas and Dharani, we sped down the last few stairs responding back with “ OO OOO”. As soon as we hit the bottom step of the hike, Ramakrishna anna opened cold crisp water bottles and handed them to us. That first sip of water was so rewarding and refreshing and we felt very accomplished finishing the hike. Slowly but surely all the geckos made it down the mountain and took their first sips of water. We all piled back into the bus and were told that there was some yummy food that was waiting for us when we got back to Haritachala. All the geckos made this hiking experience so fulfilling and we yet again conquered another hike. We are so grateful that we are able to experience and explore Tiruvannamalai in ways that we wouldn’t have ever imagined. We are so excited for the next adventure we can conquer together and the next time we’ll be able to sing our way up a mountain again.