The Kareri Lake Trek and Behind the scenes.

Like any other year, 2020 was supposedly the year for more adventures, new learnings, guilts and extra weight gains but it turned out to be awfully different . Who would have imagined that terms like pandemic , quarantine and work from home would steal the show but life moves on and so our spirits. With the onset of Covid -19 , not only we were all bailed upon each other but on the brighter side got some time for ourselves for at least good 6-7 months just in isolation.

The dire situation somehow got under control but my travel lust was totally out in the nature, just in the reverie of creating some more beautiful memories that I craved for whole year.

And this one fine day , with a simple exchange of greetings with my old and travel bug friend , we decided on a trip and he gave me a classic disclaimer - Divvya , our plans are very last minute and you will get to meet new people in this trip! I didn't care about anything but the travel. Call it good luck and we started on Thursday , like he mentioned that I would need new people but he didn't mention was there would be 9 other people 😀 , 2 cars and 9 people - YES! I was happy to be part of the group and he ensured he made me comfortable , I was a little conscious of being judged but who cares :p we were all going for a small village trek called - The Kareri Lake trek, Mcleodganj. we embarked our journey on Thursday night and Friday early morning reached at the homestay and made sure our assess were getting good rests.

Day 1 -

I had been to McLeod earlier but the charm of stepping out in the wild after donkeys years was more flattering to me and I decided to just sit eat and chill and enjoy the view. Coming to the introduction of every individual. The most trusted and elder was the bhaiya in the group followed by bunch of boys and 3 girls , everyone was full of life and happiness. We all were making efforts to make each other comfortable and at the same time taking their case in the most fun and annoying way.

Day 2-

The night before every experienced trekker apart from me ( I 'm not experienced but was part of the discussion) decided to get up right at 5am in the morning and get our assess moving for this Kareri trek, while others were friends with each other the longest time and they were betting on this. Fortunately or unfortunately it was raining cats and dogs in the morning and it brought smile to my face ( I wanted to bunk the trek :p) and just chill for no reason. With time everyone concluded on doing the trek. From 5am that we decided , finally made a move at 11:30 😀 coz we are the champions!

Sunset View ❤

Day 2/2

Reached the Kareri village at 2 and commenced the trek at 3pm, whilst ,we were all gearing up 2 other junkies joined our club and we started to trek, me being the least interested one thought to team up with bhaiya and he kept telling me every 500ms that there's a flat surface and we can rest, which hardly came , it was this steep uphill trek (at least for me) after every 10 mins I was begging for a break and bhaiya kept boosting me saying - Didi, I will click your photo if you trek. 😀 couldn't say no to that. The first group was with Bhaiya , 2 junkies and I, thankfully these kids were helpful and kept walking without any efforts at all and that amazed me. After an hour we were at this beautiful sunset point , had Maggie , clicked pictures and thought to wait for our fellow friends with few more halts and did the same every next hour. This whole trek was immensely beautiful , the only reason that kept me going was the beauty , I had this curiosity for more and I won't lie it was only getting better :). After the sunset it was a bit clingy and equally dangerous to trek in that trail. It was pitch dark with no torch, no mobile battery and no sight of other boys who were supposed to be the leaders , and then we gauged this bridge that was quite rustic with the soothing background music where the birds were singing ,chirping , water was flowing like some dense feeling and stars were shining bright. Good 20 mins in the campsite there was a hurdle , guys making noise that we are here and we made it- our boys finally arrived.

With the junkies

Day 2/3 - The Campsite and the Bonfire

Tired feet and hungry tummy was what we landed with at the campsite , the campsite bhaiya helped us with the basic amenities of snacks , bonfire and food , that indeed was the good spot 🙂 it was a fun good evening with loads of laughter , food and dancing :D. it was the best quality time each one had coz all the cell phones were dead!

The lake

Day 3 - Morning with the view

While we could not do the summit as we were late and in the interest of time all had to rush to office the next day it was concluded that we head back and with some awesome and great memories of the kareri trek we started our way down to the village, oh btw - Camping bhaiya made fresh aloo parantha with white butter and chai for all of us, indeed some treat!

Look forward for another trip with these people again and make more memories while we all beat the fear of covid this year also. see you soon :*