Just like any ‘modern woman’ I also want to travel,experiment and discover the world as well as myself and be a women on adventure. Also just like any other ‘modern woman’ I am also extremely busy being an employee, girlfriend, sister, daughter, friend and what not. I have been trying to take a vacation for the longest time but the struggle is real when it comes to planning those! Office leaves, aligning schedules with friends, getting the ‘yes’ from your parents (the toughest one!) and a million other factors that you end giving up on the whole idea instead. And as I was spiraling down the daily thought process of when and how to travel I heard about this one day adventure for women by Adventuresome. It seemed like the perfect one day plan.
At first I was skeptical if I should go along or not, ‘is sacrificing my lazy Sunday worth it?’ and if at all you don’t want to know the whole story (your loss!) (TL;DR), IT SURELY WAS. I have no regrets from this trip! Wanna know why? Keep reading.
Adventuresome organized this all women only trip for a reason. They understood the ‘taboos’ that come along with women traveling; not only the ones which the society has created for us, but also the ones we have created for ourselves. Often times, women don’t take a step towards adventure — either because they don’t have the company of another woman who is ready to be courageous or they do not know how to take the first step. With this trip, Adventuresome provided me with both — a group of woman who are ready to be brave just like me and the right amount of adventure I needed to make me want it more!
Let’s now dive in to the details of this fun filled women only trip!
We started our trip around six in the evening on Saturday from Hebbal. As I boarded the bus I could see the excitement of all the other women who couldn’t wait to find out what was in store for us! It was an hour and a half long journey to Chikkabalapur and I spent most of the time talking to my best friend from college who I had met after a month or so (it takes a while for women to catch up, okay? Don’t judge me!)
When Google assistant said “your destination is on the left”, all I could see was darkness, forest and a half-standing iron gate. I gasped! We then went through the gate into the darkness for about half a kilometer when we saw light coming in from the place where we were gonna be staying in, Camphalli. We were greeted by two extremely friendly dogs and the host of the place Pushpa. We also met the other women who were going to be the part of the group and had decided to drive 60 km on their own (How cool is that?! If anyone calls a woman a bad driver ever again, I am going to kick their butts right there!). I was humbled by Pushpa’s hospitality as she had prepared hot pakodas and gulab jamuns for us. After eating the delicious snacks we gathered around the bonfire.
Shifali introduced us to this creative idea of getting to know each other. Each person had to enact their names, you know — dumb charades, but with your name? It was a fun activity. We were also asked to describe what adventure meant to us and I found it quite interesting to hear the variety of opinions all these women had. Though my answer that night was different, if I had to combine all these women’s answers and describe what adventure is I would say — An adventure is anything that makes you feel something — happy, sad, excited, angry or whatever feeling there may be. We then discussed about what fear is and how the basis for it is assumption. It was a good to laugh so much and also have such an important discussion at the same time.
The evening progressed with Poojitha taking a dance session for us. And I, as a kid used to love dancing but somehow I stopped practicing as I grew older. Poojitha’s session brought out the inner kid in me and I was surprised to see myself dancing at the top of my energy in front of so many people after so many years! After the energetic session by Poojitha we set out to pitch our tents!
Prashant briefed us about the steps on how to set up a tent and we were then divided into teams of three to setup a tent. The catch was that we had to use only one hand which was our non-dominant one! Shifali wanted to give us a value learning of paying attention and not assuming things, she mentioned that we weren’t supposed to start pitching until she said ‘start’. The first time she said ‘go’ and I knew I wasn’t supposed to begin because I heard her clearly but since everyone did it I started too. Later, when she explained her motives I realized that I had a self learning as well — that I shouldn’t be afraid to trust my gut and my instincts even when the rest of the crowd is doing something else entirely. Our team was the second fastest to pitch a tent! The tent activity gave us the joy of accomplishing and learning something new. We then had a lovely home cooked dinner which was the courtesy of Pushpa. I interacted with the other woman for a while and we then proceeded to play some games.
Prashant explained a game called Mafia which most of us hadn’t played before. It was a casual and light game, yet we all needed to blow our brains out! We somehow ended up playing multiple rounds of the game till 2.30 am. Most women went to sleep in their respective tents after that, I on the other hand ended staying up till 5 am with the Adventuresome team. It was a special night to me because I had never spent a whole night talking to a group of people who were not-so-close to me without the fear of being judged or feeling excluded. It was amazing to listen to all the stories and the experiences they all have had and how they have come a long way from where they were when they started Adventuresome. Since it was late I did not wanna go back to the tent and disturb my friends so I took a sleeping bag and slept with the team under the open starry sky. Lying there and staring at the night sky brought an unexplainable peace within me.
I woke up an hour later with sunshine on my face and a dog barking beside me. I decided to take a walk around the area. I spotted a few lotuses and decided to simply enjoy the fresh air until everyone woke up.
I saw that Pushpa was around and decided to start a conversation with her. I asked her how she started Camphalli and she explained that she and her husband bought the 65 acre land here over several years when they were in the U.S. She mentioned how they both wanted to create a down to earth escape from the city life for people like us. She went on and told me how all the farms in the area were entirely organic. She said she manages the place traveling to and fro from Bangalore because she is the mother of two teenagers and her husband has to travel often for his job! How hard working she must be!
We all then freshened up and gathered for a yoga session by Shraddha. Shraddha started the session with simple breathing and warm up exercises. Most of us in the group had never tried yoga before so I could feel the defensive attitude of some of them (I was too!) but by the end of the session I Shraddha had convinced us that yoga is something we would all want to at least try and incorporate in our daily lives. Shraddha also taught us some positions which are helpful in relieving period cramps and for women suffering from PCOD. She also taught us various exercises which are helpful for relieving back pain and losing belly fat. My body felt much lighter and alive and my brain felt quite calmer after only a half an hour of yoga! It felt so effective that I am actually considering going for yoga classes! The yoga session was then followed by a discussion led by Shifali about mindfulness and how important it is to at least find 5 minutes a day to introspect your mind and yourself.
We then ate some fresh fruits and commenced for a trek. It was a sunny morning and we began our way through the moderately dense jungle. I think most of us had a trekking experience before so none of us found it that difficult. But it wasn’t a piece of cake either. There were a few slippery rocks here and a few thorns along the way. It took us around forty five minutes to reach the summit. We rested there for a while and made a few jokes over the expense of Prashant and then started the descent.
After coming back we ate some fresh idlis and listened to some music. We then had a self defense session. We all then discussed about the learning and the experiences we have had over the past day and everyone had a different thing to say! Some of them said they wanna be more mindful now, someone said they are proud of themselves for coming out there and socializing.. everyone learned something! I learned to let go, to push myself and in simple words just to give things a shot without trying to control everything (For those of you who do not know me I tend to ‘Monica Geller’ things a lot).
I think we all had one common learning too, as women we have to fight patriarchy everyday of our lives but if we support each other, uplift each other, come together we might as well win the fight someday! I saw twenty unique women that day who chose to spend a weekend together and now will support each other a long way and that in itself is an adventure!
We then started our journey back home.
It was a refreshing experience in every way. The trip was well organized and all of us felt comfortable with each other. Every moment on that trip will now become a memory I will cherish. Kudos to Adventuresome for living up to their mission ‘Adventures made Awesome’ because this truly was an awesome getaway! It was the best Women only trip and would recommend women looking for an adventure to take that step with Adventuresome!
Also you can Book your Women On Adventure Trip here.
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Thanks for the article post. Really thank you! Great.