Let me start off by saying I don’t like the outdoors. I’m quite fond of spending time in my house with my Nintendo DS and my desktop. Social interaction isn’t my thing but I also succumb to peer pressure quite easily so when my editor Hari along with some of my friends said lets go camping I had an urge to shoot someone but I was now going camping, something I hadn’t done since school. The good news was that we were going with a professional group called “WildTents” so maybe things weren’t going to be as bad as I was expecting.
The week leading up to the camping was filled with idiots being over excited and me trying to ensure that my blog would be taken care of in case something happened to me, I wasn’t looking forward to this especially since we would be one of two groups camping that day. When the day finally dawned my alarm went off at 9 A.M. I got up and threw 2 T-Shirts, some night wear, my swimming trunks and my DS into a back pack, I thought it was quite little for a camping trip but Wild Tents was supposed to be setting up tents and sleeping area for us so I didn’t really know what else to pack. After thinking for a while I threw in a pair of shoes, grabbed my car keys and went to pick up Hari who I would be driving while the rest of the group would be in another car.
We were to meet one of the members of Wild Tents just outside Nashik so that he could lead us to camping spot at Bhandardara . At the meeting point he told us that it wasn’t too long a drive but we would be crossing some rough roads so the better drivers should be driving, since one of my friends has a habit of climbing dividers and breaking trees when he is in front of a steering wheel I decided to drive my car. We set out in a three car formation with the guy from Wild Tents leading the way and me being dead last. It wasn’t a slow drive but he wasn’t one of those overly fast drivers so keeping him in sight wasn’t difficult, the rest of the drive was nothing out of the ordinary except for the scenery while I wondered how lost I would be if I was on those roads alone.
As we approached the camp site we could see some people walking around who I suspected were the other campers. After being shown where to park by another member of Wild Tents I got a chance to look at the camp site, the first thing that struck me was; I was at most 10 steps from the water and since I’m quite fond of swimming that cheered me up though I wasn’t sure we could swim in that water. We were assigned our tents and threw our stuff into them, literally thrown by a friend of mine, he shook the tent with his bag which I’m just pointing this out so that he knows he is an idiot if/when he reads this. After taking a couple of minutes to see our homes for the day we were given some basic guidelines and offered snacks which gave us a chance to meet the other group who were a set from Mumbai and a tad bit older than us.
Finally time to do something, we were given the choice of hitting the water (with life jackets if we wanted them), taking the boats out or grabbing a gun and hitting targets. The activities were not set in stone so we could do one then the other. Since I have a tendency to fall off boats I decided to do a little shooting before I went for a swim, that would give my stomach time to digest the snacks too. After spending 15 minutes learning that my aim is horrible without a mouse (where it is godlike) I decided to hit the water. As I was getting into the water I was offered a life jacket but turned it down after assuring the organizers that I would not step into area where I couldn’t stand and I was a decent swimmer which was a lot shorter discussion than I was expecting, the one thing I forgot is that my friends aren’t nice people and they did try to run me over with a boat but one capsizing later I got to swim. After I swam back to shore I noticed the other campers having a discussion with one of the team members from Wild Tents in chest high water, I thought it was some further guidelines so I decided to join them, apparently I was wrong, it wasn’t guidelines just a discussion followed by a joke about Coke and Pepsi from the team member that made me face palm but I did like the fact that the team weren’t acting like they were on over watch duty alone but were joining in which added to the fun factor and I think helped both groups come together.
When the sun went down a pile of logs that I had seen earlier turned into bonfire with chairs placed around it for everyone. A telescope was also set up so that we could star gaze, since I can’t tell the difference between Sirius and Emma Stone I just took a quick glance through it. I guess someone who enjoys star gazing would have appreciated it. One of the guys from Mumbai apparently had a passionate attachment to his guitar and takes it everywhere with him so he kicked off a sing along. I don’t know much Hindi music but with the cold winds hitting me I was just happy to take a seat next to the warming light of the bonfire while everyone including the organizers joined into the sing along. I eventually joined the sing along when classic English songs took their turn and this did go on for a while.
Finally it was dinner time which consisted of biryani that was pre made but heated on the bonfire along with some delicious starters that were made in front of us. Being a vegetarian I didn’t have the range of choices that my meat eating friends had but no complaints, I ate till I was sleepy as only a well fed stomach can provide. We sang for a little longer as well as playing some decent games which we played as mixed teams with the other group which were good fun, I remember telling my Hari during charades that the movie they were describing was Fiddler on the roof but in my half asleep state (and his drunk state) he didn’t hear till I gave him a swift kick which is always good fun to do (kicking people I mean, not guessing right). Finally I retreated to the tent for the night which I must say did a good job of keeping the cold away and the sleeping bag on an air mattress only helped the situation. I honestly couldn’t tell if I was home in my own bed or miles away from my own room, all I knew was that I was exhausted from the swimming and a comfy bed was more than welcome.
I woke up at around 10 A.M. to see the organizers picking up some things, I asked what they were doing and found out that they refused to damage the environment so were picking up the garbage. I drive a diesel vehicle so in my self-interest of not increasing the damage I do to others (which I leave to my video games) I grabbed a bag to help out only to notice most of the other campers were taking the same effort and had already cleaned most of the area. I guess if you are going to feel completely un-needed it might as well be doing a good thing. Once the site was cleaned we had breakfast and were ready to leave. My group was going to be guided back to Nashik while the other group would be guided to the highway back to Mumbai so off we went.
The drive was uneventful which is a good thing, once home I switched on my desktop the second I entered and started to unpack. While unpacking I noticed my Nintendo DS who had been brought along on the trip to keep me entertained in case I got bored which I had fully expected to happen but didn’t, that goes in Wild Tents favour that a computer and video game addict didn’t need his addiction fill which is saying something.
Overall I had fun, I won’t let my friends ever take me camping if we are doing it ourselves but I sure as hell won’t mind another trip with Wild tents.
Originally posted on GenericGamingBlog
