Iramara Guppi - A trek to remember for life

We were going to a place called 'Devara Dibba' Gangikal near Kalasa. The name justified God's presence and The Almighty TRIGGERED a button for us to realize the value of life and announced we really are MINUTE in this Universe.

Mullodi is a village that has many villagers who have made their houses a home stay from where they take us on trek to Devara Dibba and other places.  Reaching Mullodi was a task itself as we needed to take a jeep from the main road of Kalasa and the route was steep, muddy and rocky! We reached Mullodi and were welcomed by Arun at whose house we were to stay and after refreshing ourselves we left for the trek and Arun was our guide.

We were 6 of us who left with Arun. Devi, Sharath, Rajesh, myself and Mahesh with his 8 year old son Dhruva was our team. Dhruva was like mercury and was very inspiring to all of us to be more active. We found a beautiful waterfalls on the way.

We crossed over a small river through the forest and reached a beautiful spot from where we started trekking. This place had grasslands, with some difficulty and breathing hard I was enjoying the scenic beauty and climbing those hills. After a while it was more steep, Devi, Rajesh and I were trekking, while Rajesh was asking about the stories of Ladhak to divert our tiredness, while the father-son duo, Sharath  and Arun had gone far ahead of us. 

We were also discussing about a techie who got lost in a jungle a month ago and returned after 3 days that was in news! With some sense of humor of being lost and imagining ourselves on news channels taking some good laugh breaks, also deliberately taking breaks giving an excuse to click pictures, drink water, tying the shoe lace properly, all of this kept me busy and I did not realize climbing those steep high hills. Otherwise, I am unsually the laziest and last to reach any destination.

 Finally, reached the top and felt how lucky we were to be in such a beautiful place, insisted that we take rest for sometime, I  opened by bag took out 'chikki' to eat. We were kind of scattered and sat to enjoy the beautiful place. 

AND WITHIN SECONDS, THE BEAUTIFUL MOMENTS TURNED  TOPSY-TURVY!

Arun noticed certain uninvited guests and there were about 4 to 5 wild bees flying above. He then advised us to just go low on the ground with the jackets on our head, not move and they would leave soon. While we did that, within seconds numerous bees rushed inside the jacket buzzing and stinging, though in pain I tried my best not to move as advised. 

I  looked up at the sky for a moment, the color was no more blue, instead there were hundreds of bees filled above. Next to me was Mahesh and his son Dhruv. Mahesh said he was trying to light a match he had, but there was nothing around that was dry to light up. After few minutes, I heard one loud scream by Dhruva and then Mahesh loudly said, we should simply leave the place and both ran and I started following them, they were too fast to follow and soon vanished. The bees were following ferociously entering into jacket, attacking my hair,face and body. 

I was blindly running, sliding, rolling and fell a couple of times to get away from the bees. They were simply following me as if they loved me the most in the world!

Then I suddenly noticed there were none around, the 360 degrees picture perfect landscape had no start or end, this was the moment I knew I have lost my way, thoughts rushed into my mind 'If I had enough something in my backpack to eat', 'what if I am going to encounter any wild animals', 'how will I manage when it gets dark', 'trying to analyse if I am going in the right direction and if anyone will ever find me again'!  Uff... I screamed out for Arun and others but to vain. I then continued to run wherever I felt like for about 10 to 15 minutes..

I was finally releaved when I heard Arun shouting at me to get into the forest below, where he stood inside the woods. I again asked Arun to stay in a trembling voice so that he is be visible (I believe bees get confused and do not attack if you are within woods) There, Sharath also was waiting, who had reached by rolling over the grasslands.

I stood in the woods with blank mind, feeling my soul shiver and a shock in my body. As we stood there, we slowly removed  the stingers from most parts of my body. Rajesh was more worried, was looking for all of us and joined us finally. Arun then left to check about Mahesh and Dhruva his son who had left to the homestay. I saw Devi standing from where we had entered the forest.

I was completely exhausted, semi-conscious and felt nausea possibly due to the reactions of numerous painful stings, toxins reacting, tired physically and possibly due to the panic as well. We still had to walk for more than a kilometer from there! Rajesh and Sharath had a tough time motivating me to reach the home stay as I could barely walk, I often was lying down on the path and heard feable voices and saw black & white surroundings. They gave me electrol and water that Sharath brought from the river going down again though he was in pain,  I threw up all of it. With their support and encouragement I was in a sigh of relief to reach the homestay and saw the jeep. I got into the jeep with another thud on my forehead while I sat next to our driver and we directly headed towards hospital.

Luckily the bees had spared the 8 year old  Dhruva, who did not have a single sting aslo. Doctor also had an opportunity to scold us that we folks come from city, do not know the consequences and so on. He literally insisted us to get admitted where we were loaded with drips and medicines for few hours in a huge hall at Kalasa. Wow.. we started exchanging our experiences of what happened to each of us while on bed and did not know when we soon fell asleep. And this was the most peaceful sleep ever I had in my Life.

What an ADVENTUROUS nature's fury experience! I smile when there is a bee around buzzing even now :)

Thanks may be a very small word for all the help provided by 'The Adventure Gypsies' I certainly would like to go again, visit the other place that we missed for the next day!

Back home, I had a total of about 38 sting marks on my body :) Also about 5 bees traveled home with me who were in my jacket and bag.

They would have been swarming or something would have disturbed them to go wild. 

http://www.wikihow.com/Escape-from-Killer-Bees  was something I looked at immediately after I reached home.  Its their nature, I DO NOT AGREE they are KILLER bees :)

This would anyway be handy for any trekkers and help them mentally prepare, just in case!

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