Sita Falls Trip: An unforgettable life threatening experience

This happened somewhere towards the end of monsoon season, in the year 2008. I was in the 6th semester. We had decided to go for our class trip to Sita falls which was approximately a 3 hour journey from our college. Now being the end of the monsoon season, there were chances of finding all sorts of slimy creatures around.

Our college is situated in a forest by the way. Far far away from the city. The waterfalls we were going to is situated deep in the forest. I think there were around 25 of us in total and a good mix of boys and girls. Our travel bus arrived in time in the morning and we headed out to the spot at our planned time.

The journey to the falls was quite a memorable one. We had lots of fun in the bus. Everyone was cheerful, energetic and above all excited to explore the great falls.
This was not our first class trip to a waterfall. We had been to Hanuman Gundi earlier to this and it was a wonderful trip. This waterfall was known to be more spectacular than the previous one. Anyways, as we continued to our destination, we played a few games to pass our time in the bus. Games like Antakshari, Dumb charades, truth and dare, etc. We also had a lovely dance performance by Siddharth from our class. I particularly remember this one because we had recorded a video of the entire performance. The dude has really got some dancing skills.

As we neared our destination at around 11 am, the bus had to stop as there was a very narrow bridge which could not carry the weight. We got down and started walking forward.

The surroundings looked beautiful. There was no sign of the waterfall. The ground on which we walked was dry. The sky had broken clouds and far off in the distance we could see tall mountains covered with trees. We formed smaller groups as we walked towards the falls. We were informed that there is a five kilometer walk to the falls so we were prepared. We were also informed that there could be leeches around as it is damp in some areas. The areas we walked around were mostly dry and there were some creeks too. This was the only flowing water visible to us at that time. I carried my video camera and covered a few areas on tape as we walked. We knew it was a long walk ahead.

There were some PJ's cracked along the way and laughter and talks about previous experiences. It was a merry walk until suddenly my friend stops walking and looks down at his foot. There it was, adhered to his toe, like a thick black thread coming out of the toe, a leech sucking his blood. He did not seem to panic much as he has come across leeches in his life. But I had not. This was the first time i ever saw one and the thought of it sucking blood out of his leg gave me goosebumps. Well what do you know.. We have come well prepared. Two packets of salt. My friend takes a pinch of salt and sprinkles it on the leech, it twirls into a spiral and immediately lets go of the grasp. This instills fear into many of my comrades. Especially the girls. I am pretty sure some of them might have thought of discontinuing the journey at this point itself. But we had already covered about half a kilometer so we pushed on.

The path we walked on started getting more moist as we walked along. It was around 12 pm. We could notice a stream of water falling from a nearing mountain. We were assuming that was the falls even though the actual falls was supposed to be much bigger than that. The forest was getting more dense. We could see more green around us and more streams of water flowing at ground level. There were more clouds forming at this time and it covered the sun most of the time. We advised ourselves to watch the ground we walked on to avoid leech bites. We could see leeches crawling across the ground. They move on the ground like play springs. It was very creepy. As we walked further the number of leeches we could see increased. Eventually more of us were being bitten one at a time. Towards the end I was the one who was not bitten by a single leech and I was like "I am going to survive without being bitten today at all". Boy how I wish I could be at least close to that statement.

Yes, I too was eventually bitten by a leech. We were very unscrupulous with the packets of salt. The leech bites were happening so often and so quickly that we did not bother taking pinches of salt. Many a times, we just wasted the salt by pouring it on the feet to clear off the leeches. Salt was getting scanty and all were getting worried. We were just hoping we would make it to the falls soon and relax there for a while.

We proceeded further and leech bites were inevitable. The forest was very dense now. Looked around for the waterfall but it was nowhere in sight. The girls' shrieks and shrills were increasing constantly. We pressed on ahead. Many of us really did not want to proceed foreseeing more critters ahead. Many of the girls called out and suggested that we head back but the majority wanted to proceed.

We are deep within the forest now. Leeches everywhere. We could see them crawl toward us. The fear that we once had of leeches was dieing away. We could not help it. There was no way we could avoid them. Leeches EVERYWHERE. We could not keep our foot down at one spot for more than a second. Our eyes scanning each area on the ground and a span of 1 foot around it for leeches before placing our foot down. We had to constantly get them off our feet. They don't come off easy. We were running out of salt because of the unscrupulous usage. We had to rely on just pinching them off, risking more amounts of blood loss. Blood just poured out from the bite spots after pulling them off.

We reached a point which was almost like a dead end and the only way forward was to jump onto a rock which had water flowing on all sides of it and on top of that rock were a large number of leeches just waiting to quench their thirst.
Enough was enough. This had gone far enough. Half the group decided to head back. We did not want to risk so much just to see a waterfall. But some of them still did not want to give up. I was more concerned about the others who were really frightened and really wanted to get back. Our group splits in two here.

We try to trace our way back. Our half of the group mainly consisted of girls and only around five guys. We had to again pace very quickly. We tried following the route back but then at one point we realized that we had reached an area which we had never seen before. We were LOST.

Lost in a dense forest. No idea where to go. No network in anybody's cell phone, leeches and other scary insects around, can't keep your foot down for more than a second we had to be on the move. We tried screaming out for help... but to no avail. Nobody could hear us. We all started losing energy and hope. All sorts of uncanny thoughts scraped my mind.. 'what if we have to stay here forever' 'what will we do for food' 'how long will we survive'... the thoughts were never ending. To make things worse, it started drizzling... Some of the girls began to cry. We guys took turns in trying to take an alternate route and reporting where it leads to.

This routine carried on for a while until finally we reached a point where there was heavy water flow and far off in the distance we could see a small hut. We got tiny signs of relief. No matter what we had to get there. There were several small rocks which we had to skip across to reach a point where we had to climb up to a higher level. The guys provided a hand to the girls and helped them across and then we reached the point where two of us gave a boost to one of my friends and he got up to the higher level. Then with his help, the rest of us could get up. The rest of the path to the house was simple. There were not many leeches in this area. We reached the house and found some residents inside. We were relieved.

We cleansed ourselves up. They offered us water and directions to get out of the place. We rested there for a while. We offered them all the food we had in return. None of us were hungry anymore. All we wanted to do was get back.

On the way back, we met the other group who, unfortunately, also did not get to see the waterfalls. We then went back all the way to our mini bus and headed back.

In the bus all were dead exhausted. All were just discussing about the entire thing that happened. We did not get to see the falls for sure. But what we experienced on this day was a once in a lifetime event which would not have been attempted had we known how risky it actually was. It was surely one hell of an escapade and many of us had lost lots of blood on this day.

The next day when all of us met in college, all we did was discuss what happened over and over. It had surely brought us all much closer to each other. It really created a bonding amongst us which was never there before. The memories of this day will stay in all our hearts for a long long time...