This year’s WWW was a brilliant learning and recreational experience. We started early on Monday at 6:00am. Honestly at this point I was not looking forward to the trip, not because of the content but because of how tired I was. The 
bus ride was… an interesting one. For some reason the chairs were at a 90 degree angle, I don’t know who decided that but it wasn’t ideal. For the first hour I stayed awake with Cohen and Olau to talk about our favorite games and shows but at a certain point we all unanimously decided we’d had enough. So we then created the most unique sleeping arrangement of all time. We went through a few, all three leaning on each other, one upright whilst the other 2 layed down across, none of them hit the spot though. We then landed on Olau lying vertically on the ground, Cohen horizontally and myself lying across the 90 degree chair. At the moment it was great, until we had to actually get out ( intense back ache).
Our first hike took away a lot of the doubts I had for this trip. We started at Lanka Ella and Bambarakanda Fall
s, the setting was one unlike any I’d really experienced before. Being Sri Lankan I assumed I had been to many places but I had never seen a pine first in Sri Lanka like this. The trees sprawled across the hill side, at the first small step towards the left you could see the grand waterfall sprinkling crystal clear water down its rockface. Moving further up with the group, we came to a small opening where the tall pi
ne trees ceased their expanse. It opened to a large valley, the upcoming hills encased by thick fog covering the foliage on the hillside. My first thought and one that recurred throughout the hikes was that the scenery was very fantasy-esque; it really reminded me of my favorite games or movies I’d seen. The annoying part was the grass, unnecessarily long and itchy overall just an inconvenience. We moved down the valley until we made it to a small oasis where we were planning on swimming. In all honesty, it felt like a “ test of courage”, the water was baltic and was stingingly cold. However, it was very fun. That night we went to the campsite where we would only spend one night, but it was actually quite a good night sleep. My roommates Liam and Cohen thankfully agreed to sleep peacefully so I felt somewhat refreshed for the next morning.
The next 3 days were spent at Adisham Bungalow. Whilst each one was different and rewarding in its own way, they had a similar schedule hence why they all sort of blur together into one homogeneous experience. My roommates again were the same, Liam and Cohen. Luckily we made an unspoken agreement to actually sleep which was genuinely so helpful. All 3 days were jam packed with hikes that were unlike any I had been on before, whilst I had hiked before with my dad that trails we went on were 
breathtaking. The rainy days that I thought would make them miserable actually made them more enjoyable in some ways. The fog that enveloped the mountains and the mist that covered them made them alluring to see. I genuinely didn’t expect to enjoy just being in the scenario as much as I did. During the hikes, Cohen and I continued our bus ride and talked about our favorite games and TV shows which did add to the atmosphere. My favorite hike was on the second day at the bungalow, that day the path we took was my personal favorite mainly because of the vast views and the way thedog sat on the hills but did not completely encase them. Last night at the Bungalow, we played werewolf ( a card game), which got pretty heated as it usually does but it was also a nice way to close that segment of the trip.
The next day ( Thursday), was one I had been looking forward to for the whole week. Horton Planes is a hike that I have done before, but it was honestly too long ago for me to remember it. So I was really hyped for this day, fortunately it didn’t disappoint. The weather, vastness of the planes and the feeling when we got to the main attraction “ World’s 
End” certainly delivered. Even though we were a little bit late and the clouds had already taken over the view, it was still pretty surreal and exciting to be there. This hike was more chill and laid back, I just took in the views and talked with my friends. That whole hike made me remember how much I love the highlands area of Sri Lanka, the drastic difference between Colombo where i spend the majority of my time and where I was at that moment. After the hike, before we went to our fina
l “ camp site” ( if you can call it that) we stopped at Jagro for strawberries and waffles. Definitely the peak of my trip, the hike was accompanied perfectly by a snack of decedent strawberries ( perfection). Our final destination was what all of us were working so hard towards, the Grand Hotel Nuwara Eliya. After 4 days of straight hiking, sore muscles and games of werewolf I think everyone was longing for a day of relaxation. When we got there, I was woken up by Olaus’ cheers of excitement from recognizing where we were (he had been hyping this place up non stop). I almost felt bad to step foot in the hotel in my damp clothes and beat up shoes but at a certain point I lost that feeling. We had lunch almost as soon as we got there, a Thai restaurant. I had a pad thai and it was genuinely so good I could feel all the fatigue leaving my body. After that we were given some free time before our night hike, so Cohen, Liam, Dimitri and I went to the pool and then showered. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to the night hike but I kept an open mind. Out of all of our hikes it was definitely the most unique. It was less of a hike and more of an information session with a bit of a scavenger hunt. The main objective being to find indifferent endemic frogs or lizards. It was actually more fun than I thought it would be. My favorite form was this one with no pattern on its back, it was almost beige and it looked really cool because it stood out from the other ones that blended in .
That concluded the final night and after an absolute feast of a dinner we went to bed after a few rounds of Werewolf. I slept really well, it felt like I was morphing into the bedsheets and I really didn’t wanna get up but I had to for the actual final hike before we went back to Colombo. The last hike again felt different because we were no longer shrouded by clouds and fog, the blaring sun hit the hill tops we walked on. This one went by pretty fast, probably because even though I had really enjoyed the trip I was looking forward to being in the comfort of my house again. It was only about 2 hours until the hike was over, it felt a bit weird that after we ate lunch we wouldn’t be driving to the next campsite or hiking to another viewpoint. But it did feel rewarding. The bus ride back was slightly less eventful than the first one, Olau, Cohen and I sat in our “ usual” seats and talked for a bit until we all decided it was time to sleep. Mr. Russo let us play music on the way back so that also filled the silence a bit more and made it easier to relax. We made it back by around 4:45, it was actually a surprisingly good bus ride. Ultimately, My biggest takeaways for this trip were to never judge things prematurely because you might actually end up enjoying them more than you initially expected. Even though there were ups and downs, I made a lot of great memories and developed new friendships. I would definitely recommend this trip to anyone, as long as you’re okay with flicking leeches off your socks every couple of minutes 🙂