Sudhagad and Pune

I went on another trek this past Saturday. Similar schedule as before: up at 3:30 and on our way by 4am, via taxi, train, two buses and a auto-rickshaw to find the trail head at about 9:15. Two dogs joined us for what soon became a scramble through thorny underbrush which didn't end up leading us to the hilltop fort we were headed for. (We approached the summit from the side with lots of cliffs.) By the time we figured this out, it was around 1pm and it seemed to be the case that trying to find a feasible route up wasn't in the cards. After a lunch stop in a dry riverbed and a rinse off the brush stop at a green one (with water buffalo and baby turtles) we found the village where the easy route up starts. But the road was being redone and there were no rides until the next road, an hour's walk away. We did make it back to a road where an auto-rickshaw picked us up by about 6pm, and then to a moderate town by 7pm. I jumped on a bus, and then transferred to a train to head to Pune and meet up with Joby, who is in India getting the outsourced programmers that his company has hired up to speed. Joby was going to come and visit Jill and I, but his recent adventures with rural India inspired his employer to make him promise not to leave town. Anyway, I made it there before midnight, we wandered around town for a little while and then crashed out in his hotel room. Sunday afternoon I took a very crowded train back to Mumbai. After passing through north Mumbai where all the people live, it was rather empty.

Pictures are here:

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