When we got to the hotel last night, we sat down with the manager and before we could say "we'd like to go to Horto....", he said "Horton Plains tomorrow morning? 6:00am departure?". I guess that's the "thing to do here". The idea of leaving early is to get to the park when it opens, hopefully avoid the crowd, and get to World's End (possibly the coolest named point of interest in the world) before the clouds rolled in. Most people stay in Nuwara Eliya for just one night, but staying there two nights would give us plenty of chill time.
The hotel packed us a lunch (we'd requested a "no-egg" breakfast.... What is the world's obsession with eggs anyway?) and our driver picked us up as promised at 6:00am - talk about the Walking Dead! The drive out would take about an hour. For the first half hour, we wove through little hillside farms and settlements built right into terraces that climbed the hills. As we continued, the population thinned out and we got to an area with soring hills covered with tea leaf trees - some were organized into a grid like pattern, some haphazardly arranged and others looked more like the clustered sections of the plantations in Cameron Highlands. It was very pretty.
Eventually, we passed through farmland that looked right out of the heartland of Ontario, though we were 1500 meters above sea level. In fact, most of the farm area was the property of a New Zealand dairy farm. After that, we began climbing. The switchbacks that climbed the side of the hill leading up to the park entrance were very steep - they were also narrow (about a lane and a half), bumpy and very tight in the corners. The higher we climbed, the worse the road got (getting closer to simulated Canadian weather I guess).
Finally, we plateaued and we saw signs that we were in the park area. Horton Plains is a national park that is protected under an umbrella UNESCO world heritage site called the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka. For us, it was a chance to see a different side of the country and to get out for a nice 10km walk. There was also the chance to see some wildlife, which we "checked off" as we got near the park entrance and spotted this friendly deer.
We had a request to the driver to hit an ATM after we were done today, but we ended up being so low that I had to borrow 1,000LKR from him to cover the entrance! Locals were $.40 each and our little group of foreigners was $85 for the four of us. It was Saturday, so there were also a bunch of local tourists there. When we got to the car park near the start of the hike, we noticed we weren't the only 7am group there - there were about twenty other vans parked in the parking lot.
A quick toilet break and we were off down the path. There were three little stops on the 10km loop - Little World's End (ranked the 174th coolest site name in the world), World's End and Baker's Falls. The path that they had made looked like it was now an easy place for water to run through - there was a lot of erosion and you had to step carefully in some spots (grandparents who are planning to visit take note). The whole feel of the area was pretty cool - we were mostly hiking on a rolling grass plain, with whisps of cloud occasionally floating by. On the horizon, there were equal patches of blue sky and clouds.
We got to Little World's End after about a 4km walk. This area was a small cliff with a concrete platform with no railings that dropped about 400 meters straight down. We had a clear view and could see far into the valley, and if you got too close, you really had the feeling that you were toying with a plunge down to a quick death. The height was incredible, but we wanted to press on to World's End in hopes we would see the big drop without clouds.
We walked another kilometer and a half before we heard the chatter of a crowd. World's End is a straight drop of 880 meters down and when clear, you can see all the way to Galle on the Southwest coast. The steep cliff makes all of the area at the top of the plateau a cloud forest - the trees suck the moisture out of the clouds that rush up the cliff face and they are covered in moss as a result. It's not quite the cloud forest that we saw in Chang Mai, as there was dense forest there, but the effect is pretty cool.
The girls had been a little freaked out at the description they'd heard on IDTR (Impending Danger Talk Radio with your host Beth Tyndall) about the approach to World's End. From the description, it sounded like we would be walking through thick, cotton ball clouds, then suddenly the ground would open up and swallow them whole. They laughed, relieved, when we approached the big platform area full of people, signs and informational placards. It was a close call :-).
Even though we were early, Mother Nature did not cooperate - the view was obscured by thick, swirling clouds. Maybe it was more intimidating as we neared the edge - we just stared down at the top of the clouds and thought about backing up to relative safety. The feel of the drop is scary.
We opened up our packed lunches and laughed at what was inside: 2 pieces of bread, 2 oversized cocktail weenies (the horror!) and a piece of cheese that at that point looked like a giant 12" cold cut combo to me.... Luckily we had brought some provisions with us in anticipation of....well...cocktail weenies.
We sat at the top for a while. I had my cheese, and Abby's and all was right in the world.
The cloud forest behind the edge of the cliff was surreal.
The extension of the loop that started heading back to the parking lot was really nice. We munched on our delicious day old samosas from Garden Cafe as we trotted down the path.
The terrain changed again. We rounded a corner and we were now midway along one side of a valley that had a picturesque river running through. It was a scene taken right out of the Irish Countryside.
The path went steeply uphill for a few hundred meters in a forest where we found stairs leading down to Baker's Falls. It's the largest, water based, horizontally emphasized waterfall in the upper plains of central Sri Lanka..... I swear.
We got back to the parking area, Beth triumphantly stating that we'd done 20,000 steps (three yawns). The parking lot was overrun with vans and there were hoards of mostly local tourists just getting underway. I'm glad they missed the travel book notes to come early! Our driver was waiting there with a big smile. We crawled along the main road back, occasionally ducking to the side of the road as more vehicles came up. The way down the switchbacks was hilarious - how we managed to squeeze by some of the vehicles that were coming up I will never know. There were full buses coming up the narrow road too. At one point, a bus was kind of stuck in a corner, and all of the (mostly male) passengers had to get out and walk upwards a bit so that the bus was lighter and could make its turn around the corner. Wow.
It was a nice morning. We were really glad for the walk, and it was nice to see the scenery on both the drive and the national park. When we got back, we had to stop at an ATM to load up on cash. Suddenly our tall, skinny, nineteen year old hotel manager pops his head in to our car and says "here are your train tickets sir!" - so weird and wonderful - the guy was everywhere. He asked what we were doing tonight and I'd mentioned that last night, when everyone else had fallen asleep, I'd heard some really raucous local musical performance going on near the hotel. I'd actually gone out on our balcony and listened for ten minutes. He apologized and said if it happened tonight, he would tell them to stop. I corrected him that we were actually in to the music and he said with a huge smile... "Oh, I will find some for you tonight.... Or even bring music to you!". Ok! His enthusiasm was infectious.
We stopped at the one hundred fifty year old Grand Hotel that seems to have more restaurants than the entire town. We ate at the Grand Indian which had awesome Indian food.... Note to Grandparents - you may want to stay there!
We mostly all needed a nap.... Ahem. Beth succeeded, more or less. Abby did well. Robin, was a disaster. Oh well, two out of three wasn't bad.
We had several knocks at the door. Apparently our manager had found some musicians that were willing to come to the hotel and play for us. We told him we were looking for a crowd and we were hoping it wouldn't just be us - the crowds at these things are often as interesting as the music. He assured us he would get locals to come watch and enjoy the music too. Well, ok then!
At 8:00, we came downstairs and out to the front driveway area, they'd set up a few tables with chairs and umbrellas. We sat down, and the staff stood and watched, and we waited. Momentarily, a van pulled up and four guys got out. They set up a an air powered keyboard (like an accordion but sitting flat on the table) and a large Sri Lankan drum. Two guys sat behind the instruments and two other guys pulled up chairs - they turned out to be the "clappers". They began to play a couple of droning songs that were nice. The staff joined in with the rhythmic clapping. After fifteen minutes, a group of eight or so locals were coaxed out of a nearby hotel (we think by our manager) and they joined our private concert. They began to sing along and clap and dance, and it was pretty nice. The music itself was largely repetitive, but whenever this one heavyset guy in a matching suit and hat started dancing, the entertainment value ramped up.
The "party" lasted until around 9:30, when the other group begged off and the manager asked us if we wanted the guys to keep playing. I said that the kids had to get to bed, they were bored tired (though their energy level bounced back when we watched a little Walking Dead before bed!). What a quirky little impromptu way to end our last night in Nuwara Eliya.... We're going to miss our manager from this hotel!
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