Think of your life as a waterfall; it may come crashing down at some point, it may have its ups and downs, but in the end, it will continue to flow.
Chitrakote Falls was always on my radar since hearing that it was the widest waterfall in India but given the location which was bang in middle of naxal territory, my apprehensions were on an all time high. I would plan for it and then deviate to something else over the years. This year though I made up my mind to brave through my apprehensions and planned a trip to Chitrakote through Nagpur. I thought I would do a round trip through Vizag / Hyderabad but given the paucity of time (had just 7 days in hand) I decided to trace my steps back the way I came in.
So essentially I was to drive 1500kms to Jagdalpur and return exactly the same way back just to see a waterfall
and this took a ton of convincing to get wifey on board.
Finally, everything was planned, booked, packed and we were ready to go…
The plan was simple…Mumbai - Lonar - Nagpur - Kanker - Chitrakote (Jagdalpur) – Nagpur - Aurangabad - Mumbai.
Day 1 : Lonar
The Mumbai-Pune expressway was acting up over the past few days but got some sound advice that it was all well and good so we started out as usual at 1am from our pad. Ten minutes into the drive and the heavens opened up…the rains accompanied us right up to the expressway which had very sparse traffic even lesser than normal and it was a breeze till Talegaon exit where we branched off towards the Chakan-Shikrapur road which is a nice 2-lane road that joins the Aurangabad highway bypassing Pune. The Nagar bypass was in a good condition as was the Aurangabad and Jalna (surprisingly good) bypass. Made it to Aurangabad/Jalna by 9am where the 4-lane highway ends and it was around 100kms to reach my destination for the day…Lonar.
The bad roads started around 15kms before Sindhked Raja but it was slow and steady progress before I got stuck in a massive traffic jam for a palkhi procession moving towards Shegaon. Thousands of “warkaris” were walking, camping, praying, dancing all over the place and we were stuck there for around an hour before managing to crawl out and reached Lonar by around 10am.
Start of the trip...0.0 on the ODO.
Somewhere after Sindkhed Raja...a palkhi procession to Shegaon which jammed up traffic for a good hour.
The MTDC at Lonar is situated right on the edge of the crater and is surprisingly neat and clean. Small cottages wrap around a central hall where the reception and restaurant are located. While checking up we met up with a guide named Ramesh who agreed to take us down to the crater and around Lonar for a dekho!
View from MTDC, Lonar...can see the edge of the lake at the top.
Cottages at MTDC, Lonar
We freshened up, had an early lunch and started out with Ramesh to trek down towards the crater. The sun was bearing down on us and there was no sign of rain in the air. The first stop was the view point.
Plague at the first viewpoint.
Lonar Lake
Then started the long trek down to the crater bottom through broken steps, thorny shrubs and 6 inch long millipedes!! I huffed and puffed my way down ( which I realized later was the easy part!) to reach the first pitstop on the way, a 900 year old Shiva temple with another recently excavated shrine nearby. We met a cool ‘baba’ who was on a foot trip from Kanyakumari to Badrinath staying wherever he found “anand”!! He spoke impeccable English and seemed other-wordly…so detached yet happy! He invited to stay for lunch which the resident preist was preparing….’tis was a tempting offer but we respectfully declined, wished him well and moved on after a 15-20 minute tete’-a-tete’.
Thousands of 4-6 inch millpedes abounded all the way
The easy way down....getting back up was the chore!
This little fella was screeching his lungs out...among the other noises were peacocks wailing and the occasional hyena laugh (as per the guide but I have my doubts)
Ancient Temple halfway down the trek.
Cool Baba....seemed and sounded so happy and detached!! On a walkathon from Kanyakumari to Badrinath
Walkway around the lake....this is where the stench hits ya'.
Wildlife!
Reached the lake and the first thing we noticed was the stench...like a thousand rotten eggs! The guide was going on and on about the geological wonder that Lonar is…the rocks, the alkaline (ph) level of the water, the algae it harbors, the birds that feed on that algae and all the gyan…while I was more worried about the climb back.
Lake upclose!
Seems these birds feed off the algae that thrives in the lake.
Algae upclose.
Another ancient temple beside the lake...was told there were 14 all around the circumference.
All coiled up!
Company on the way up...
Contd...