Another Saturday, another trek. Well, barely a trek. We'd decided to go to a fort called KoraigaD near Lonavla. Actually, the name was listed as KoreegaD on numerous websites, and we found that was incorrect when we read a book on Maharashtra tourism. It was the same OW group that I had accompanied on the trek to KamalgaD two weeks ago. GT had promised to join me. I reached BG at 6:30 AM, a good 15 minutes after the scheduled start. Last time I'd been the first person to arrive and had to wait more than an hour before we left off, so I took precautions this time. Kam, Viv and some others were already there trying to contact those who hadn't shown up yet.
I called up GT and my nagging suspicions about him were proved correct. He had earlier promised to join me, but had seemed sort of doubtful when he read that we had to carry our own lunch. Not being a Punekar, he was not in a position to prepare food for himself. I told him not to worry about food, as there would be plenty if last time's feast was anything to go by. Friday evening I had once again asked him if he was surely coming, and again he seemed a little iffy. So when I woke him out of his sleep, he said he wouldn't come because he could not get lunch along. I was carrying enough lunch for two people, but I did not tell him this fact and just urged him to come. He refused, however, and hung up.
I went to Var's cubicle to drop off my helmet. I did a little browsing since it would take some time for everyone to gather. When I reached downstairs at around 6:50, 5-6 more people had arrived and Viv was pulling up the final list of people. I scanned it and was surprised to find GT's name. I told Viv that GT wasn't coming, but another guy Prat said that he was. It turned out that Prat and GT were good friends, and Prat had called up GT twice urging him to come, and GT had finally relented. By7, everyone had gathered - 23 people in all. There were no girls this time, the only female being HH's wife. Their two kids were tagging along as well.
We were off at 7:10 towards Lonavla, taking the old Mumbai-Pune NH4. The Pune bypass section of this highway is just an awesome stretch of road - pure four-lane belt of concrete, absolutely straight and spanned occassionaly by flyovers. Speaking of flyovers, there was one notable anomaly. Normally, flyovers carry highway traffic above intersections, so that the flow of the fast-moving traffic is not disturbed. The Hinjewadi flyover is a notable exception. The highway passes under it, and the flyover carries IT-Park-bound traffic over the highway!
Our progress soon ground to a halt about 35 km out of Pune. NH4 becomes a two-lane piece of trash about 25 km from Pune, and is extremely difficult to drive on. Two huge trucks had collided head-on, and were blocking traffic kilometers away! It seemed the mishap had occurred very recently, as highway police hadn't reached the scene to direct the traffic. We wasted around 40 minutes getting past the accident spot, before we resumed normal speed. We reached Lonavala at around 9 AM and headed towards INS Shivaji Camp. We passed Bhusi Dam on the way, and forked off towards Sahara after passing INS. The road suddenly became extremely good from this point, very smooth with metal reflectors and spanking while divider lines. It was also banked on the curves! We passed 2 or 3 mini-ghaats on the way with some precarious hairpin curves. About 5 km away from INS, we halted at a view-point known as Lion's Point.
Lion's Point overlooks a long and narrow valley nestled between the steep cliffs of mountainside. Due to the good rains this season, the countryside was still quite green and pleasing to the eyes. After the usual photo-session we resumed our journey. Our destination was a village called Shahapur Peth, which serves as the base camp for KoraigaD. We passed a few imposing peaks on the way, and were continuously on the ascent. Shahapur is so small that we passed it without notice. We realized that when we stopped at the next village down the road - AmbavaNe. We backtracked to Shahapur and were finally able to start the ascent.
KoraigaD is an imposing peak as seen from Shahapur. All we saw was a narrow and steep cliffside. As seen from the top, KoraigaD is shaped like a cudgel, fat on one side and thin and long on the other. The route to the top took us past the cliff we were seeing, to a spot where the ascent was more accessible and less steep. The ground we were walking on looked like a quickly-hacked path for heavy machinery like tractors. The tyre trails that had carved a path for the machinery was the give-away. We branched off this path and reached a point from where the ascent would begin. And to our dismay, we found that there were stairs all along the way! They looked freshly laid out, and at points there were short pillars where one could rest. This was not a trek, but a mild slope!
After a 15-minute climb, we reached a small temple of Lord Ganesh carved out in the mountainside. There was a cave near it, which contained water. No one risked tasting it, and we were on our way after a photo-session. We reached the top in another 15 minutes, the whole ascent taking 30 minutes flat! Made so easy due to the stairs no doubt. And imagine our surprise when we found two uniformed security guards on the peak! This was not making sense - the stairs, the wooden railing, the pillars as resting points, and now security guards. I asked one of them if the government had erected the stairs, and he nodded in agreement. I had spoken in Marathi, and got the feeling he had not understood my question, but I let it go at that.
KoraigaD is huge, nothing like the 50-by-50 square peak of KamalgaD. And it's strategic importance during Shivaji's time was there for everyone to see. It was an imposing peak with steep sides that would have been virtually impossible to climb. The peak was an isolated mountain, situated between more extensive mountain ranges on all sides, and separated from them by narrow valleys. There were mountain ranges towards the east, south and west sides (directions are approximate), and a long valley to the north and more distant mountain ranges beyond. From the point where we reached the peak, we all headed northwards along the thinner part of the cudgel that was the peak. It took us almost 1.5 hours to wander along the periphery and reach the point directly opposite from where we started.
KoraigaD has a natural source of water - two small ponds right in the center of the top! Well, actually it's just one pund - an elevation in the center had been exposed, and the water level had fallen on both sides that caused it to like there were 2 ponds. We all gathered around the edges of the larger one, and spent the time dipping our feet into the ice-cold water. Then we gathered at a temple, and had lunch. This was, just as I had expected, a feast! After lunch, we investigated the southern - and wider - portion of the peak. When we reached the far cliffside on the southern tip we were stunned by what we saw.
We had read and heard that KoraigaD overlooks a resort known as Amby Valley, which is a project of the Sahara group. Towards the eastern side, we could see something we guessed was Amby Valley. There were cabins on the shores of a huge lake in the valley nestled between KoraigaD and the opposite mountain range. There was even a fleet of high-speed motorboats. Another curious structure was on the western side - a small airport with facilities for small aircraft and choppers. Yes - there was a helipad and a small runway! It was baffling and unreasonable that Sahara built an airstrip to serve a small resort. The reason was apparent when we discovered what lay beyond the southern cliff.
In the valley was Sahara City - a hi-tech city-cum-resort with the very latest amenities, sprawling across the valley. In fact, the whole sight looked like something out of a futuristic computer-generated image. There were neatly laid-out rowhouses surrounded by green lawns. Smooth roads looking like veins spanned the entire city. The roads were lined with trees and various greenery. There was a swimming pool near the rowhouses, with some dome-shaped buildings in the water. A little towards the east, there was a huge fountain. There was another fountain near a building which looked very much like a town center in an AoE scenario! Farther away were 3 elegant and huge bungalows. There was a structure that looked like a stone-age house right out of The Flintstones. The security guard told us that it was a discotheque.
What I'm describing here is not as drab as it sounds, for I have no words really to do justice to the sprawling city. It was like a totally secret society that had come up in the mountains and built a city. And what a city it was - surrounded by mountains and lakes, with a historical fort keeping watch. We could see that there were halogen lamps mounted on tall posts all along the ground near the cliff. It would be a sight to behold when they illuminated the sheer cliffside! What a fantastic concept and vision these Sahara guys had to build this! I got the curious feeling that one of the creators must have climbed up KoraigaD and stood on the very spot where we were, looked down into the valley and visualized his city.
Around 3 PM, after walking along the southern periphery, we were ready to descend. It took us only 25 minutes to reach the bus, as the descent was so easy. We rested till everyone gathered, and pushed off towards Pune at 4 PM. We reached BG at 6, and I was home at 6:15. This had been a sight-seeing picnic, and not a trek as we had originally planned. Nonetheless, it was fully worth climbing to the top - as we got to witness huge mountain-ranges as well as the man-made wonder that was Sahara City.
