Three

ALMOST LOSING A FEW AND LIVING THE DREAM 

Matina, Murali and Ravi drove down in the Hippy van and parked it in front of someone’s house. Matina left a note for them saying she was parking the vehicle there and if they did have an issue they could call her up. The irony being she does not pick up her phone after that.
While parking the vehicle, she guided the two boys to take some path and soon realized that she had made a mistake. She called out, Murali called out and the opposite valley resounded with these calls����.
Meanwhile Matina and Bruno were in touch and after much helloing, the three got together and came down to the log cabin. Matina did not relax for a very long time after that, replaying a scene of losing these two men on untraversed Swiss village roads. But good things have good endings and so they all came back together.
Incidentally Murali who had data on his phone, left it with me. And so there was no way we could get in touch with him either. So much for communication modes, anyways.
But grown men, bright and intelligent, running companies can be total misfits for such unguided adventure travel. 
It sounds very romantic, the log cabin and so forth, but you have to walk a cruel 3 kms, for me especially. Huffing and puffing and slip sliding over pine needles, the entire path strewn with these fragrant twigs and enticing pine cones all over the place.
Incidentally Akhila and I drove with Bruno in one of the most rough and bounciest rides and so had to only climb down 1 km. With some small pieces of luggage.
I have decided adventure is not the tourism route for me. We are used to small luxuries of life which includes somebody carrying your bags, not taking rough roads and definitely not taking such dangerous paths ever.
Having said that, once you reach this extremely romantic log cabin, you can only drink in the scenery, absorb the smells of the mountains and then Bruno lights up the chimney. Have you all not dreamt of the wood smoke coming out of the flue, while a warmth fills the single room and a kettle actually bubbles over the wood stove?
So, soon we settle down to Old Monk rum, of which we have carried about five litres. And ate some food. We all got cosy beds after the measured use of water in bathroom and switching off lights because the solar power had not caught on as yet.
We have been eating a lot of rice along with some vegetables cooked with salt and paprika. Murali, the fussiest of the lot where food is concerned has not complained as yet