This was supposed to be a short ride of about 50 km with most of it being downhill. This allowed us to start the day 30 min late and get in some pictures of the riverbanks early in the morning.
As soon as we started cycling, we realised that the roads have now drastically changed. Infact from here on, the concept of road was basically limited to a path full of stones, mud and at places construction material.
We crossed a beautiful village very close to our campsite, which had pastel coloured mud houses and small narrow mud lanes in between. Had I known about this place before, I would have spent my previous evening here instead of Udaipur in search of pictures.
Right after this village we also crossed one of the fastest flowing streams of the day.
The rest of the road towards Poorthi, was all by the river side, sometimes right beside it and sometimes going on the edge of narrow cliffs.
A few km before Poorthi, we turned off the main road and headed towards our campsite. Right there a few 100 meters onto this road, a stream flowed across forming a large puddle that spanned about 40-50 ft in length, seemed atleast a foot and a half deep at places and covered the entire road. There was a narrow trail on one side, but losing balance meant a sure shot dunk in those muddy waters. While most of us were able to navigate this puddle with little difficulty or atmost getting their shoes wet, one of us unfortunately bore the full brunt of this puddle. No one warned her of the depth, and she ended up getting dunked in those muddy waters. Fortunately, there was no damage except the obvious shock of what just happened.
Our campsite was across the river, next to a helipad. We crossed over on our cycles and waited for the camp to be set. Since the bridge was narrow, the larger vehicles could not make it through and it took time for us to set camp.
Some of us found an icecold stream to bathe in ( nothing beats the grime as cold water from the mountains).
A few kids from the nearby village dropped by to say hi in the evening, and we had a great time playing catch with them.
As the sun set we took a stroll on one of the nearby trails to get a view of the hills around.
Back at the camp, we had an early debriefing and retired a bit early to bed, thanks to one of the most daunting days that lay ahead of us.