I have to go through the old memos and calendar to check the last that I went out, in a way that's fun, biking or hiking. But recently with, lots of free time in the bags and studies put aside for a while. I was given an opportunity to work for the right cause and learn and to improve and understand, the way of working on different approach of Environmental Cause, as been recruited as the Enviro Crops for the year 2011, we were invited for a orientation program, in a form of hiking, starting form Sankhu to Nagarkot. The most interesting thing about it was, no one really knew anyone, not even the names or the faces, apart from the interview/workshop day, no one had never met each other, and had no idea who were among the six people to be selected. Everyone reached the destination, Old Bus park at 7:30 , this where everyone knew who were selected, still no names. As soon as everyone has arrived we took the local bus to Sankhu, an hour or less of bus ride. The morning had already shown the signs of what the day would be, so had the weather, which didn't really helped us all but at the end of the day it didn't really matter much to us.
The hike started from the bus stop at Sankhu, with the temperature cold, and faint rain, we started our journey towards Nagarkot, after having a cup of tea and few things to eat. The first few kilometers were mostly a double lane road, we walked along the slippery road. Finally, we picked a detour, as per the suggestion of locals, who by the way were extremely helpful. Upon reaching some sort of suspension bridge, we were all gathered and described about what the hiking was all about and how it was going to work. We were told that, we had to play different role and observe different environmental and social factors along the hike trail and express one's feeling about it at the end of the day. 3 different groups with every single group being assigned different roles, A tourist, A politician and Students researching in Environmental issues. After the short briefing, we started walking up the steep hill, along with our group members, discussing about what we were to observe and present at the end of the day. It was about 3 hours long walk up the hill, a steep one at some places but, it felt like it just took few minutes to reach out destination. Even though few hours before, no one knew anyone, even before the end of the day everyone were connected with each other and knew a little more than before.
Sharing stories about the past hiking experiences, educational background, hobbies, likes and dislikes about particular genre of music and almost every field possible. Finally, we reached the destination, after interesting walk for some 2-3 hours or more, tiring for some. Almost everyone was hungry by then, so we decided to gather for potluck. Everyone had brought different home made foods, snacks, and even fruits, we picked a rain tormented field, still wet, and sat in a circle enjoying the foods and sharing different stories and views, and then sharing one's experience and the role playing that we had to do. The politicians started up the conversation with what they have seen and what improvement they need to focus on more to change the living standard, without disturbing the natural habitat and a perfect one day hiking route. The students added up their views about how the vegetation and animal habitat of that place was undisturbed till now, and explained about different species of plants and animals they observed during the hike, finally the tourist shared their first time experience of that particular hiking route and the greenery, natural resources, scenic importance of that area. Everyone generated great ideas of what the place holds for development of Tourism, balance in Ecosystem, environmental issues and overall a very productive ideas. The discussion ended along with the hot tea in the cup along with our role playing conversations. Then, we gathered our self, took some group photos and started walking again. And, as always, like the saying, save the best for the last, the best part was to return home in a gigantic sand layered Truck rocking back and forth down the hill hanging tightly to the steel frame so tightly that the marking remained till few hours like it had been tattooed up in our palm and singing and dancing (partly) enjoying so much that we actually lost the thoughts of where we ended up at the end of the day and almost took a bus opposite to the way we should have!
