Hunting the treasure with Emperors in Nagala East - Treasure Hunt in a trek

Hunting the treasure with Emperors

For all the lazy readers,who don’t want to read below 984 worded  experience of Treasure Hunt,kindly skip to the bottom of the article and find a short summary especially for you.

Due to my poor fitness or rather call it less confidence, I did not even register for the treasure hunt conducted few weeks ago by Peter, but regretted it. Did not want to miss the second chance. The normal CTC(Chennai Trekking Club) procedure was followed, registering for the trek, short listing the participants, starting the mail tread, this being a fresher’s trek, a lot of FAQs were seen in the mail treads by the first timers of CTC, calling up participants, arranging transport, confirming the participation etc. As usual, all participants met at the designated pick up points. I reached Tidel Park well before the time, only to find there were few ahead of me. The driver, Big Mustache Guy, was also there. Having been on treks with him earlier, we both were engaged in a conversation. This is where I got the first surprise of the trek, I had thought we were going to west for the trek, but it turned out to be we were heading to east.

            Engines started, bikes roared and we headed to Uttukotai. I was damn hungry and poor me, was offered only tea in Uttukotai. But  soon was fed hot idlys and vadai in the base village leading to Nagala East. We reached the parking yard, distributed food items and from here the organizers Arun, Senthil, Selva and Santhosh took over. After a deep discussion and some sketching, they announced the rules of the event. Basically we were split in 4 groups, ensuring that atleast there was a swimmer and a nagala east experienced person present in each group. Talking about experience,it was little uncommon to see a diverse participation in terms of experience. From school going kids to 52 years marathon runners had participated in the FRESHERS treasure hunt.

            Our zeroth task was to decide a team lead and a team name. We were fortunate to have Durai sir in our team and without a second thought we preferred being called Jaguars. Our first task was to solve a set of 5 puzzles which varied from mathematical to logical to reasoning to verbal. The team Tuskers solved ahead of us and moved towards the second hint. To get the second hint, we were asked to report to Senthil in the first pool with a parcel, which was supposed to be unopened. The tuskers were in good pace and it was difficult to catch them enroute. While the 3^rd team had been moving with the same pace as we and were a competition to us. The rule that, all the 7 were to be present during every task, ensured that everyone moved as a team. Lot of pulling, pushing and motivation was seen in every team. The second task was to nominate two people from our team. We were not told of what the task would be. Blindly we had to nominate 2 persons. Luckily I did not volunteer, as the task was to eat Bitter Guard(Paavakai). Kudos to Selva of our team, who ate both the paavakai with lot of courage and no sign of any disregard on his face. By the time, we were done, the first team had moved.

With lot of  energy, we proceeded to cross the dead end pool, which was the third task. The main parameters in getting brownie points for the 3^rd task was to ferry across the dead end pool with the most efficiency and team work and minimal support of the organizers who were there to help every team considering the risk in crossing the dead end pool. After all the teams had crossed, we halted for lunch. Thepla with pickle soon gulped down .In the same order as the teams had crossed the dead end, the respective teams were asked to proceed further to meet Arun on way. Arun had the most exciting task for us. Like last time ,we were asked to nominate a single person from each team without knowing what the task would be. Just to confuse us,Arun had told the task might involve some physical activity. Without a difference in opinion, all of us nominated Selva-the savior. The task was to memorize a love poem and narrate to Arun. At most only one mistake such as negligence of a single word was accepted .While the first team had a tough time, Selva was able to narrate word by word in the second attempt itself. Hurriedly we proceeded to cross the gorge via uphill and meet arun at the next point. Since we were leading and were far ahead of other teams, we relaxed and also enjoyed some good group photographs.

The 5^th task was to search for cold drink bottle which was hidden in the stream based on the lot picked up by our team. Unluckily we found all the bottles allotted to the other teams but could not find our bottle. Luck played a factor here and the Tuskers team found theirs easily and overtook us. Having spent a considerable time, finally we were asked to search some other bottle and proceed to picnic pool. By the time we had reached the picnic pool, the Tuskers team had found their treasure which was a cookie box. We did not loose heart and searched for the runner up bumper gift, which we found easily. The hint was “I am right opposite the Water falls and above you”. We had to climb up again and returned with victory. Eventually we celebrated the birthday of our team member Selva. Our day ended with lot of playing in the pool, delicious soup and briyani and a moon lit picnic pool accommodation.

Next day, with lot of fun ,lot of diving and hell lot of jokes,we started from the picnic pool, crossing gorge and reaching the base camp. Followed by all the tradition CTC events like settling account, group photo, exchanging nos, dinner at Uttukotai and final good bye.

Summary(For the lazy readers)

Fresher’s Treasure Hunt in Nagala East for 2 days conducted by Emperors.

List of Tasks

Task 0 :Choosing Team name and  Team Leader.

Task 1:Solving set of 5 puzzles(logical, reasoning, mathematical, verbal)

Task 2:Eating Bitter Guard(paavakai)

Task 3:Crossing dead end pool

Task 4:Memorizing a poem and reciting without any mistakes.

Task 5:Searching for the allotted cold drink bottle in the stream

Task 6:Searching main treasure in picnic pool based on a hint.

Below is the poem,try to by-heart it.

Lovely poem
Roses are red violets are blue yellow
curly things remind me of you
your height is monstrous like giraffe from the zoo
and, oh please oh please don’t get me started on you
ok, you are listening to me it all can be fixed in a matter of time
I believe so hope so know so
oh just goooooo your scaring me

Team Names

Adengappa Tuskers (Winners)

Jaguar (Runners Up)

Hunters

Phoenix