Day 1: 

The trip began with the slamming of a van door and a decent sleep through traffic until our 1/4ish of our trip, marked by a stop at a road-side restaurant for some brunch. Up till that point it was all just highways and the usual highway scenery. It continued like that for a fair bit until we got to the hills. For some of us that marked the point where the nice straight road turned into a beautiful scenic route, straight out of national geographic. For others of us it marked our descent into anarchy, and motionsickness. Luckily I managed to sleep through most of it. By 12:30 we had reached the point of liftoff to the rest of our trip. This was where we had lunch and then went into our first hike through the patty fields.

 

 

After about 3 hours and only one leech attack (to me, others were not so fortunate) we arrived at Kinchingune, our camp for the night. After showering up, eating some dinner and a can of chile-lime pringles, it was time for sleep. Lucky for us, our beds had some nice rods through them which ensured peaceful, non troubling sleep.

 

 

Day 2:

We woke up with cramped backs and rumbling stomachs. Brekfast was some delicious porrige and bread (for me so I wouldn’t puke it up on the chaotic 40 minute drive to the hike site). The objective of this hike was to see two of the highest waterfalls in Sri Lanka, and hopefully swim in the second one. The first waterfall was pretty underwhelming as waterfalls go but the cool water vapor being shot out was more than worth it. Unfortunately we observed our first global issue of the trip here; pollution.

There was plastic bags, bottles cans etc. all spilling into the waterfall basin causing a really disturbing image. Luckily, the rest of the hike had no such pollution. At first we went through an evergreen pine forest littered with pinecones, pine needles and slippery rocks. We hiked along that trail for about 20 minutes before we saw a clearing up ahead, looking out on a magnificent view.

 

 

The rest of the hike was through a large grassy plain on a steep hill until we got to the forested creek area which led up to the waterfall. We parcoured across the stream to a large rock where we had some snacks, namely Hawaian Cookies. After the quick break we changed and jumped into the water. The water was so incredibly cold that it warmed you up, it hurt like getting punched in the gut. Once we got used to it it was pretty nice though. The water basin was about 10 feet deep and smooth edged. Some vines hung down into the water on the left side. We paused for a group picture, changed and then headed back to the vans.

 

From the hiking launch point the car trip to our hotel was about an hour.

 

 

 

 

After eating lunch we drove to lipton seat. There we climbed the hill, saw old lipton and his humongous hands and then had some really delicious samosas, roti and this dahl peanut ball and treacle thingie. Back at the hotel we were assigned to rooms showered up, played on the playground for a bit as other people showered. Then we ate dinner, wrote refliections and headed off to sleep.

 

Learning objectives of the first 2 days:

The most obvious outcome achieved was perseverance, as we had to endure (persevere if you will) through long car rides on less than nice roads, which is a struggle for me. This taught us patience as we would always be driving to see something new and mostly worth the drive. We also persevered through, leech infested patty fields, long and tiresome hikes and beds that we weren’t comfortable in. Ultimately, these first couple days really were about teaching us the value of nature, going out of our city lives to see the countryside.

We also had to be openminded and optimistic, elsewise the horrible car journeys would have been unbearable, pessimism leading us to lose sight of what the trip was about (exploring the country). We also had to have open palates as the food we ate was new. This wasn’t so much a struggle as it was delicious but still trying a new food can be a challenge for some people.