hi friends, It’s vacation time & children are doing timepass with mobile games & other silly stuff. Outdoor games which i was playing in my childhood , that games are now obsolete in city area. Digital games have replaced all these old games. That’s reason i have planned  educational road trip(in last weekend) to purushwadi, it’s remote village in maharashtra & home of millions of fireflies. I believe that unplanned road trips are best one to explore local culture.

for this fire flies trail booking click on       fireflies trail

My first destination was dharampur, gr8 place surrounded by forest & mango farms. We Enjoyed mango In Dr rajesh’s mango farm with dr uddhav & family.

On the way, valley view point

Some local fruits which are testy & specialties of this region.

Local cuisine & local style of eating food

 

Innocent villagers

short treck to have a bath on dam site

sunset trek on the hill with beautiful view of sahyadri mountain, dam & it’s reservoir.

Most exciting potion of tour start after sunset…..i.e.   fireflies trail. Small trek in outskirts of village shows millions of fireflies. Walking on the road with tiny lights as if they are winking at you, took us straight to some magical Disney set but only better. It was like watching a bazillion Christmas trees in June! The tiny fireflies with their twinkling glow kept us silent and in awe. Just think that these tiny magical creatures come alive only in May and June. We wanted to capture this moment, but our smartphones cannot capture what our eyes physically see and we abandoned all the effort. We eventually reached the entrance to some woods that was on a higher level than the campsite. We chanced upon a tree that was merrily glowing. When we reach it, we could see below and honestly, it looked like an EDM concert being viewed from way up; the tiny flies looked like cell phone glows, and even that is nothing in comparison. We played with a few flies trying to capture them in our fists till one felt sorry for us and zoomed on my open palm. We made our way back to the campsite only to be greeted by a number of twinkling trees. We sat in the middle of the road and realized that nothing in the world mattered then while being present during this magical night.

Images:www.grassroutes.co.in

QuICK fActS About FiRE fLieS:

1. there are more than 2000 species and each has a unique flashing pattern

2. they are alive for only 2 months of the year in india… may and june. they hatch from their eggs, become the cool flickering bulbs, attract a mate, lay eggs and then die. the eggs then hatch the next may! nature knows when the little larvae need to step out and see the daylight… how cool is that?

3. it’s a mating thing. yeah, it is… just like the peacocks showing off their beautiful plume. one likes to think it’s for the rains, naaahh, it’s for the very ordinary peahen! same thing here. the male fireflies blink their bums silly to attract the female firefly. guess the male with the bigger light is the winner here!

4. what do you think they are? flies? bugs? roaches? they are beetles! i think in my head it adds another dimension to them…

5. the males can fly higher than the females. the females stay perched on leaves and rocks. if a male passes by and they like the flashing, then they flash back. the male stops, their antennae touch (thats how they smell each other), they mate and the female lays the eggs. simple right?

6. best time for fireflies is the first two weeks of june. even that depends on the amount of rain. they need a couple of showers to start flitting around and flirting with all the females. if it starts raining very heavily, they can’t take the weight of the drops and you might find them by the roadside, dying… that’s the end of the season.

7. if you flash a torch on a tree full of fireflies, they go mad. they must think a beeeeeg firefly has arrived to steal their ladies…

8. the light is not warm. and is emitted by a complex process called bioluminescence…

9. you can let them walk on your hand, it doesn’t hurt, pain, tingle. you might just feel a little squeamish given that they look very similar to roaches from a non-scientific eye.

Our tent accommodation

Bhadardara- hill station & wilson dam

scenic country side….

After staying in tents in remote village, taking bath in river, eating local food & fruits, exploring rural traditions, small treks of hills-jungle & magical night trek for dancing fire flies…….i feel satisfied that i have given lots of things to kids. It’s marketing gimmicks that magical kingdom is only in disneyland…..after visiting purushwadi & watching dancing fire flies….one believe that it’s exist in india too. It’s our incredible india.