The Guide

After a lot of discussion (and googling of course) we finalized Harishchandragarh as our trekking destination. It's a common trekking place near Mumbai and one can easily find 2-3 trekking groups there on any given Sunday, especially during this time of the year. Some websites suggested that taking a guide from the village at the base of the hill, khireswar, would be a good idea, I anyway decided against it, trek is all about adventure afterall. After a 2.5 hour long journey (by bus) from Kalyan we reached Khubi-phata, this was the place from where we had to walk about 4 kms to reach Khireswar- from where the actual trek would begin.

While on our way to Khireswar a pet bitch joined us somewhere in between, she was quite a friendly animal but somehow we felt quite irritated when she kept walking with us for more than a kilometer. I don’t find it comfortable to use "it" for animals so I've used she/her at appropriate places.
We tried to shoo her away several times by throwing pebbles at her, but she wont go back, she'd go somewhere temporarily, but return back in some time. Even when we halted in khireswar for some snacks, excellent poha and tea with high sugar content :), she accompanied us in the hotel (actually the verandah of a house), even there we tried to shoo her away but she kept running round the table and finally we gave up.
As we proceeded for the trek she kept coming with us. Now the route to the top of the mountain, where there were some ancient caves and temples, was marked on the rocks but was difficult to keep track of. This bitch really helped us by going on the right path wherever there were two or more paths to choose from.
When we reached some height we decided to have some snacks and then carry on our journey, this was a somewhat rocky patch and we barely had enough space to sit there. As soon as we opened our biscuit packets, some monkeys came out of the blue to snatch it from us, and believe me, given our position we had no way to run from there or drive the monkeys away. But again our “Guide” came to our rescue and shooed all the monkeys away. She kept barking until all the monkeys left the place, that was when we developed real likeness for her (very selfish, right?).
She went the whole distance with us, it took us around four hours to reach the peak and all the time she walked at our pace, waiting for us wherever we took a break. She even accompanied us downwards and also went with us all the way to the bus stand. All of us had the same question in our mind, does she do this on a daily basis, just for some biscuits?? Or was this an exception?? I can’t somehow agree to the biscuit theory. Do you?