Eastern Ghats Trek - My first Trek

Every time I visit Araku Valley, I think of doing trek on the hills rather than a drive through the valley. All the time I sit near a window, I used to watch all those lovely curves and the lush green trees and the beautiful water streams passing through the road at times.

Araku Valley looks very beautiful in the months of rainy season and winter season. It attracts people because of its pleasant weather, hills and the beautiful valleys. Araku valley is naturally and pleasantly sistuated amid the Ananthagiri hills, Eastern Ghats.

So finally, I had the pleasure of doing trek in these Eastern Ghats along with Youth Hostels Association of India, Andhra Pradesh State Branch in the month of December–07. They were the trek organizers.

It was a 6-day trek from the base camp Shivlingapuram situated 70 kms from Visakhapatnam en route to Araku Valley (which is 112 km from Visakhapatnam).

Day 1 - Reporting – Orientation at Base Camp Shivalingapuram - 21^st Dec 07

The journey began to the base camp on 21^st Dec –07, where we have to report for the trek. Boarded a bus in the afternoon around 2:30PM for the base camp and the journey took for about two and half-hours. During the journey my adventure started, there was a sound from behind my seat, which said “CHAITANYA”. I was shocked to hear my name in the bus as I was travelling alone without any of my friends and foe. When I turned back there was a person who is also travelling along with me to participate in the trek. It was that moment, I started making friends and the first person I met during the journey was Jagannath Krishna (Krishhh, which became his pet name later) a mariner in Merchant Navy. Quickly we became close friends as if we were friends for a long time. That was lovely start for me.

Finally we reached the base came at 5 PM. Quickly we were allotted a tent to place our bags and we joined the volleyball team who were playing beside the camp. Slowly I made friends who were at the camp. Then we had snacks and I was interacting with the people who have come for the trek. It was getting dark and I made a good bond with two more people along with Krishh. They were Sriram and Srikanth. Sriram doing his Btech final year in Kakinada and Srikanth is a SAP programmer working in a company named ____ (oops forgot, Srikant fillup the blank plz!)in Vizag. We were almost of the same age group and hence we four came along together. Later on as the night was progressing, the whistle blew up for dinnertime at 8 by our camp leader Mr. Prasad. Below the star studded sky I came to meet Mrs. AnitaRao, an artist by preofession. She worked as an arts teacher in Kendra vidyalaya in Andaman n nicobar. Then I met Mr. Sivaji who is working in a National Insurance, Vizag. Slowly I was interacting with almost all of them. Again the whistle blew for the orientation. In that we were introduced ourselves and all the event directors Mr. Prasad, Mr. Ravi Paul, Mr. Krishna Murthy, Mr. Satyanandam and Mr. Sagar explained about their experiences and gave instructions and all the guidelines about the 6-day trek. Interesting part was I met some more interesting people, KIDS. Parents dropped them alone to do the trek and I was happened to meet Mithlesh, Vatsal, Jayanth, Ankit and Prateek. Later as we were dispersing for sleep, met a family who also came to trek from Hyderabad. Mr. Ramesh and his family joined the camp for doing the trek, they had a kid and his name was also Chaitanya!!! Then I met Mr. Manish from Maldives, Mr. Swapnil from Pune, Mr. Ashish from Hyd, Mr. RamaNaidu from Hyd and a group of people (a gang) from the Navy working in MOV department. Also Mrs Uma and co, who were housewives and trekkers by interest. Miss. Ramya, daughter of Mrs.Uma, doing her Btech final year in Vizag. Finally, the night ended with a set of instructions regarding the early morning Nature call places and after that we all went into our respective tents under a very beautiful sight. There were so many stars glowing very brightly in the dark sky. It was a very wonderful scene to watch. It was exactly sitting in a huge planitorium, WOW!!.

I was feeling so thrilled for the next day and praying for the Sun to raise quickly for a week long adventure.