Prathima's Miles & Milestones

It was a well planned trip to Dandeli. I started my day early on a Friday morning so that I can wrap up my tasks early as I had to leave to the bus stop so that I don’t fall prey to the weekend traffic while I catch up with my friends.

My phone started beeping for calls as early as 5.00 pm as the arrival was at 9.00 pm. Thank God I had all my emails drafted in the morning. Having an OCD is a blessing at times 🙂

As the clock strikes 8.00 I reached the pickup point, one of my friends — Riyan plays a peek-a-boo while I was looking for him amidst the crowd. Finally a group hug with a — “Mission Accomplished” when we were all set to board the bus with some selfies.

Dandeli is an amazing place for natural beauty. We reached the destination next day morning at the resort and quickly set a ride to explore the place and the adventure rides.

River Rafting — Here we go!

We were a little nervous seeing other teams when they were set and we asked them the experiences when they returned. Most of them had one word — mind-blowing, superb, daring and many more adverbs and adjectives.

So finally it was our turn. We wore the safety jackets and there was a red-coloured raft waiting for us with yellow paddles on it. The trainer placed us in appropriate positions to balance the weights on the raft.

The white water at Kali river water looks calm in the beginning until we move towards the uphill and downhills. When the raft literally jumped during a downhill with a lot of force, my heart skipped a beat. Uphill was a little difficult job as we had to apply lot of force to paddle. When we are almost there on top, the water gushed on all of us. It was divine. Dealing with risk and the need for teamwork was a part of the experience.

We were instructed to paddle forward, backward and how to pause. When people on right paddle forward and people of left paddle left, it creates a whirlpool and the raft rotates. It was easy and fun to create a whirlpool. We were trying to spot the crocodiles as its a fresh water lake.

We covered five rounds in the raft and the last one was the scariest. The trainer told us the current of water is the strongest at a particular spot and we were moving towards it. There were chances of raft turning upside down and in that case we were instructed to jump into the water. There was a rush of endorphin in my body and I was rendered speechless. We paddled hard as per the instructions and the raft did not topple. I had a sign of relief. It was truly a risky sport. This was my first rafting experience and I am happy that I got rid of the fear of water.

The next event was natural Jacuzzi. We were made to sit in certain position between the rocks where our legs were locked for the grip. The water was rushing with a lot of force upon us. At certain positions, there were ropes tied so that we get the grip and could obstruct being carried away by the force of water. We enjoyed playing around and got back to the shore in a circular paddle boat. It was a mesmerising view of the nature when we were in the boat recollecting our experiences of the day. It was pin drop silence yet all of us had the same set of thoughts running on your mind.