Mahabaleshbwar!

            The first trip out of Pune as a group of students from the Alliance program was a blast. Sheila, an Alliance program staff member, helped arrange the transportation details. Twenty-one students in total split four cars. The drivers hired drove us to Mahabaleshbwar, around the mountain top lookouts, to lunch, to the Mapro Garden markets, and to the lake where we could go on the lake in a rowboat or paddleboat.

            Upon arrival we all stopped to get breakfast at a small outdoor restaurant on the mountain. Most people got poohai, a rice based breakfast dish, chai, and coffee, though Angela, my roommate, and I were blessed to eat the sandwiches Geeta, out host mother, packed for us. Then,  we were off to the mountain top lookouts. There were many of them, though we only stopped at four.  The first mountaintop lookout was gorgeous; it was the first time I was up so high, and it was stunning. The second mountaintop lookout almost blew me away, literally! It was very windy. There were almost men with horses looking to get us to ride them for rupees, but we declined. The third mountaintop lookout takes the cake! There was not only an echo point, but also a “Kate’s Point,” named after the daughter of a British man who had once ruled over the mountainside during the colony era, but that was not the reason for the extraordinariness of this particular mountaintop. For me, and for the other students in the group it was because of the monkeys. Families of monkeys, over ten individual ones, roamed freely, and often got very close to people. One monkey even stole a lady’s lunch bag and her lunch, only to be chased away by a man who retrieved the lady’s bag.

            After mountaintops visits we all had lunch in a restaurant in the main mountainside town, and had ice cream. Then we visited the lake, and five of us went paddle boating and saw a beautiful lakeside temple. The visit was concluded in the only way fit for such a fun filled day: a flurry of strawberry buying at Mapro Garden! The men who drove us all bought, and helped us bargain. Though I learned many things on this trip, one of the things that stands out most, be it good or bad is up for debate, was the amazing sweetness of a Mahabaleshbwar strawberry.

Kate looking over Kate's Point