A trek to Ratangad

It was time for another trek. In fact, time to explore a 'jewel' among the forests in the region.  Ratangad is a perfect destination for those who like adventure travel. This is a fort about more than 400 years old, in Ratan Wadi, Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, India. This fort lies in the Ajoba mountain range in Sahyadris Greens. The fort as its name indicates, is a jewel among all hill forts in Sahyadri. The fort is located on the banks of Bhandardara lake.

We planned this trek many times and cancelled due to unexpected bandhs on Wednesdays in the Pearl city and kids going to school in the weekends to compensate for lost working days. Few of Ajit’s friends and cousins ( 6 in all) were waiting for us to confirm the dates and finally we decided to leave Hyderabad on the 29^th July 2011. Due to heavy rains in Mumbai and dates not ok for few others, only three of us from Hyderabad (Ajit, Bharathi and Soumen) and Minal from Pune were in the final list. We took a bus from Hyderabad to Pune.  Ratanwadi, the base village is bit too far to reach by direct train or Bus from Hyderabad. We took the Volvo(HKB travels)  from Hyderabad, left Hydernagar at 7.55PM. The bus journey was comfortable with only one stop at Zaheerabad for dinner at 10.30PM. We reached Pune at 6.30AM and went to Minal’s house. For a change, we got freshen up in a house unlike in restaurants and in train during our earlier trips. We had a good tea and Breakfast made by Snehal(Minal’s sis). We got ready and decided to drive to Ratanvadi in Minal’s car.

We left Pune at 8.30AM. I initiated driving in the busy streets of Pune and all the way through traffic bound roads and could not cross 80kmph on average. We reached Sangamner( 155kms away) at noon. There we had lunch with Chinmay (Ajit’s nephew who was leaving to US in a week). After spending an hour with him, we got our dinner packed too and started our drive again. This time Ajit took over the driver’s seat. He drove us through the narrow streets of small villages, yet at high speed and covered 80km in 2 hrs after stopping over to inquire the correct directions many times. It was getting late and so we had to postpone all the attractive places on the way to be covered in the return.

We reached the Ratanwadi village at around 3:30 PM. Right at the start of the village is the Amruteshwar temple (Shiv Ling). A very famous temple because of its age. Its said to be about 1000 years old. It is one of the rare temples with carvings normally found in temples of South India.

After taking few snaps of the temple and having a hot tea at the Bandi fellow, it was time to start trekking. We knew that it would take around 3 to 4 hours to reach the fort entrance. It started raining and the visibility reduced at the base itself. Bit worried about getting lost on the way, we decided to hire a guide (guides flock around offering their services and we can bargain too). For just Rs.150/-  he was ready to take us all the way up till the ladders from where the way was straight (but very risky). Ajit told it was a good deal as we had some streams to cross on the way and they would know the exact depth and as we go upwards torches would also not help us in exploring the route.

The sight of the fields, clouds, rain and the water streams was a treat to our eyes. As we went across the fields we came to a portion of a stream at a check dam. We had to walk through it. Worrying that our shoes might get wet Minal removed her shoes and I tiptoed(but still got one shoe soaked in the water). We were laughing at each other as we walked and the guide took us to a turn where the path is through a stream. More than knee deep level water with strong current. I kept asking the guide if there was an alternative path, but the guide kept moving and asked us to follow :(. This time I too removed the shoes and all of us crossed the stream carefully. Thankfully NO CROCODILES :).  As we came to the bank, the pebbles were very poky and so we were back in shoes. On asking the guide, he said we will be crossing 4 to 5 streams which might be deeper.  That was thrilling but time taking. Two dogs accompanied us all the way up. After crossing 4 streams ( one of them to the waist level) and slim waterfalls we reached the midpoint at a plateau in 1 hr 15 mins. It was pouring and we were not able to see the scenic views clearly. Whenever the clouds cleared we captured the beauty around in our cameras, but as the rain increased we could not remove our cameras more often. 

We could not see the fort on the top because of the clouds covering it. From this plateau turning to the right we soon entered the jungle.  It took another 1 hr 15 mins  of a climb through the jungle to reach the ladders. Monkeys and Langoor were the only animals which we had to guard ourselves from. I tried to keep pace with the guide and soon we reached the ladders. At the ladders, our guide said goodbye to us and told us that the water level at streams would rise much higher the next day if the rain continues through the night. Keeping that warning aside, we had to just plan to climb the final patch of the trek. We had been warned by the guide that trekkers are supposed to be very careful on the second ladder and that after the ladder and the patch of narrow rock steps, there is a small chimney climb sort of. It looked bit scary as we had no confidence in our shoes. As we climbed in the heavy rain,it did not look that difficult. At 6.30PM we crossed the Ganesh Darwaza. After that  there is a route that goes right and one that climbs to the left to the Hanuman Darwaza. We took the right route that took us to two caves. The smaller cave is a temple which can accomodate 3-4 people and the second one where there was a group of 14 already camping but  could accomodate about 20 - 25. We decided to camp in the 1^st cave which would be more of privacy. 

After almost 3 hours of soaking in rain we had finally got into shelter and with day light still around. It was raining constantly and it was fog all over. We could not see any scenery below us because of the clouds. The fort is at a height of 4500 feet. In clear weather you should be able to see the Alang, Kulang and wall of Ajoba. But we could only see a white carpet that evening. It was getting cooler. . Ratangad also has a natural orifice (nedhe – which means the hole in the needle). It is also possible to go an sit in this nedhe . It is believed it is formed due to the wind erosion. As it was nearly zero visibility and almost every step being slippery, we decided we will go there in the morning. While Ajit and Soumen went to get some water for cooking and drinking, we ladies quickly changed to dry clothes and got ready to make a hot black lemon tea. We munched fruits and some snacks as the tea was boiling in a small stove I carried. Past 8PM we had dinner with hot tea. Minal was scared to see those huge inspectors (Bandicoots) going in and out the cave frequently. With our experience in Torna, we decided there would be a candle lit throughout the night. There was nothing much to do after that in the candle lit cave. So by 9PM we got into our sleeping bags. But really did not want to sleep as we might wake up early morning and still would not be able to do anything. Minal was worried about the first two patches of descend in this heavy rain as it was scary and slippery. So to keep her mind occupied and keep ourselves awake we played a word game(Cows and Bulls).  Soumen gave up and slept in between while we three played till 10h.  Ajit too snored soon. Minal kept a watch on the candle most of the night to make sure there won’t be any visitors in our  thrill filled naturally air conditioned open temple suite with a carving of Lord Ganesh on one of the walls. 

I made tea early morning at 6AM and woke them up so that we can leave early for the sight seeing and then descend early. While everyone were having tea, as it was raining heavily, we decided that we would not be able to see anything around and so started our descend at 7.30AM.  The chimney patch ,the rock steps and the ladders took a lot of time in our descend. Then started our thoughts about overflowing streams. Just hoping that we would be able to cross the streams decently fast we started walking fast ( watching the slippery rocks). On the way we saw few more trekkers climbing up, which gave us a relief that the streams are crossable :).  We could cross the streams which definitely had higher water levels and stronger currents.  We  managed not to lose track ( which we thought we did frequently) and finally reached the base at the temple at 11AM. We were happy that we reached in descent time to visit other places on our way back to Pune even though we were fully drenched by then.

After munching few bananas, Soumen took over the drivers seat and we were all set to leave Ratanwadi with lots of memorable visual treats with us.  When the key turned right he could not hear the engine start. After repeated tries we realised that there was some problem and the car was not starting. We did not know how the battery got drained out. Few kids around told that there was a light left on the whole night :(.  We tried starting the car while 10 kids and few of us pushed the car, but failed. Now the challenge started. On inquiry we were told there was not mechanic available till 30kms radius in that ghat road. But we stopped the drivers who came to visit the famous temple and checked if anyone would help us to jump start the car. One Jeep driver tried by using wire but failed. They checked the fuse and it was fine. Unfortunately we did not have tool kit to open the battery and take it to the mechanic either.  It was past noon and slowly tension creeped. Few villagers were helpful to ask other drivers too. We asked few other if we can be atleast towed to the nearest mechanic shop. Suddenly one of the villager came with a maruti 800 driver and told he is good at these. He cleaned all the plugs and tried starting and failed. He went to his car and in no time he removed his car battery and connected to our car and the car started :). He got our battery reconnected and warned us not to shut of the engine for atleast an hour of our drive. We thanked our saviour at that moment( he just charged Rs.300).  AT 12.30 pm, Ajit took over the driving seat and cautiously we drove for the next 45 mins to Randha falls. There we stopped the engine and checked if it starts again in the parking area where there were too many cars and was bit more populated than Ratanwadi. The car battery was charged and we were relieved.

Randha falls were beautiful close the Bandardara dam.  We spent some time there and started to drive back in a different route which was shorter to Pune. This route was of less traffic but awesome sceneries.  We forgot all the tensions we had earlier passing through these beautiful landscapes. We stopped over for a mini meal( Maharastrian specials Vada Pav, Misal Pav and Kadi vada) at a small road side hotel after Ale Phata at around 4.00PM. Soumen took over driving and we drove at a very good speed to Pune and reached Minals house by 7PM.  Snehal was preparing dinner for us and Nikhil went to get some Bakarwadi for us. We quickly got refreshed and hurried to catch our bus back to Hyderabad at 8.30PM.  We were all exhausted but had a wonderful and an exciting trip.  Ratangad was indeed a jewel in the crown.