The Final Flag-Down: The Deccan Odyssey 2016 Has Ended

We loved every minute, every second of it, but now it has come to an end. The last few days of the Rickshaw Challenge – Deccan Odyssey 2016 were surprisingly uneventful… well, except for some instances, like the final flag down and the announcement of the winners! Here is Princely’s update: 

 
Day 7
The Aurangabad rest day has really proven to be a break for the participants from driving a rickshaw. I gave them the option of riding with their rickshaws or a local taxi to Ellora during the previous day’s briefing.  All the teams preferred taxi, and that is hard evidence for the longing of a break from driving for all the participants. The teams visited Ellora and they came back before 3 pm – they took the rest of the day off.  The organizing team went around Aurangabad and visited a few temples and finally went to see a picture in local language.  They rest day came to an end and we were prepared with next day’s challenge sheet and everything. The scoring was eventually done and Team 1 was the only team which was meticulously doing all the challenges.  During the night when I was checking the Facebook pages, I saw that teams posted a lot of photos in Ellora, provoking lot of curiosity about the caves among their friends.
Day 8 
The destination for Day 8 was Nasik. During the briefing, I told participants all about places worth visiting, like the vineyard and the old town of Nasik. The Road from Aurangabad to Nasik is a mix of rural and semi urban routes, comparatively bad roads. All the teams started early and during the whole day I did not receive any calls from the participants. The eventless day finished early before 6 pm. Team 1 complained about some engine trouble and I asked Chennai Garage mechanic Babu to attend the fault.  We then left the hotel around 8.30 pm.

Day 9
Final day morning was a casual one, and all the teams were excited about the finish. The weather was overcast with slight drizzle in the morning. Teams started from hotel before 8.30 am and the first call was from Team 1: they were facing sort of the same problem as the evening before. Finding the Team became a little tough as they had pulled down from the main road to a service road to the right side. We wasted about 45 minutes to search for them… Eventually we found them and they were quickly back on the road. We drained the petrol in a can and saw some particles in it; we concluded that the bits have blocked their flow of petrol. To be honest,  after 5 years of experience, this was the first time I went to the hotel without missing a road… I was in the hotel well before 3 pm. As usual, the Sun ‘n’ Sand team and Management staff were totally cooperative and did the best to welcome the guests.

Team 4 was the first to arrive and Team 1 arrived about an hour later. For the last bit, a problem came up and they couldn’t manage to touch the line without any assistance. Team 2 & 3 arrived simultaneously and we had our Finish Ceremony at 6.30 pm. Team 1 was declared winner and the rest of the teams received their mementos,  all of them spoke about how they enjoyed the run. Turns out, the biggest challenge for all in the challenge sheet was finding the petrol filling stations, even they said that some of them does not work anymore.

Lovely rally came to end and in Mumbai, the rain started immediately. It was pouring during the time the support crew travelled… It almost looked as if the rain wanted to wait and see that the teams are safe; then it started to its merry pouring. See you for the next adventure!