Yet another trip.

The past couple of days had turned out to be a bit of a disappointment for me. After more than two months of non-stops exams, which left its toll on me, not because it meant I had to study my ass off but because it meant that the others had to do that which left me all alone trying to figure out what to do with my time, we suddenly had that huge raincloud zapped from above our heads. I was finally expecting to do something worthwhile with my time after two months of swatting mosquitoes, during which the only useful information that I picked up was the knowledge that no matter how many mosquitoes you swat each day, it never is enough. Obviously not with my college mates as most of them had gone scurrying off to their respective homes, but with my older friends, the ones that I made during school. But due to a plethora of reasons, most of them weren't even going to be in town during that time. I could expect a few back during the weekend but I had to survive till then on mosquitoes and movies.
'Friends I made during school' is a bit of a misnomer as we all met each other during preschool. That meant that we've known each other for a little over 17 years, which thanks to the idiot who invented percentages (and the one who invented the calculator) can be expressed a bit more emphatically as 85% of our lives. We also happened to end up in the same class during our ninth and tenth years at school, two years which we all remember as the two most fun years of our lives, a fact made even more special by the two spectacularly boring years that followed, a waste of a school and a few dozen lives. So all that meant we all stayed in touch even after school and met up every (read most) weekends and made a few trips together whenever we could. We also built upon something that we did during our time at school - exploring the city where we had all grown up and stumbling upon some beautiful places which not many knew about. It not only meant spending more time with the people you know you are comfortable with but also all the fresh air I needed to survive.
I managed to survive till the weekends with a bit of help from those of my college mates who hadn't gone home. The few of them who were going to make it back were only going to make it back by Saturday evening, so that meant all we had was the whole of Sunday. That did not stop us (or atleast me) from sleeping through half of Sunday, but we did manage to meet up by the evening. We had two bikes and four people so that was a perfect fit. Then came the little matter of deciding where to go. One of us had heard of a huge rock in the middle of the woods that had a great view of the city. We did not know how exactly to get there, but nevertheless we went for it.
After a bike journey that lasted half an hour, we reached this place that had the forest that included our destination. It wasn't much of a forest in terms of area but it certainly was a handful in terms of density. We had to drift off the road and take a really path, halfway through which we decided to abandon our bikes, and cover the rest on foot. After bothering a few locals for directions, we finally reached the woods, which we needed to go deep into to get where we were supposed to get. And all we had to do from there on was to follow the directions we had and look for the clearing.
Regardless of the delights that you may encounter the journey, the moment when you see the first glimpses of your destination remains the most fulfilling part of a journey. This was no different. Awaiting us was a huge rock, not the most difficult to get on top of, but one that still offered a breathtaking view of all that it presided upon. The view from the top was direct rebuke to all the people who argue that my city was boring. The counltess hills that dotted the skyline alone could have accounted for several days spent exploring them and it was no surprise that for us there was always one more place to go to, more hill to climb, much more beauty to discover.
We spent time taking pictures and then just lay down enjoying the view and talking. We always had a lot to talk about ranging from the latest movies to the oldest memories. We decided to start back at around to six. But we soon found out that we had made a grave error in doing that. December meant shorter days which meant the no light by around six. It was dark enough outside and it was approaching pitch black inside the woods. Fifteen minutes and a few knocked over branches later, we were beginning to realize that we were well and truly lost. The phones as always were out of range and talk soon began sarcastically, then a bit nervously of spending the night inside the woods. We soon tracked our way back to the rock decided to make one last attempt to get out, based on our recollections of the view that we first encountered when we came in. That had stuck in our minds and we finally got back on track after spending the better part of an hour trying to do it.
Time once again posed problems as the rocky path in the dark made it impossible for the bikes to go without skidding here and there, and our luck once again came to rescue as each time we fell to the right, which meant that I could land on my one good leg and avoid the crevice on the left. After we got back on the road, we finally were able to relax and enjoy the trip back, stopping at friend's house before arriving at the nearest burger king which was the climax of most of the things we undertook together. It was proof of God's twisted sense of humor that the most boring of weeks had culminated in a really interesting weekend. And that a most interesting trip had culminated in the stalest of fries.