January 20-January 24 / Colombo, Sri Lanka
This was my last Week Without Walls trip with the Overseas School of Colombo, and it was a memorable one. The trip was filled with fun, poop, frogs, toplessness, shaky pictures and friendship. I honestly don’t think I could’ve asked for a better group or trip. I am glad I signed up for the Highlands trip and I am glad it went the way it did.
Day 1 – Monday, January 20
We left our school on the 20th, a Monday, quite early in the morning. We spent most of the ride fiddling with our cameras, chatting and playing UNO at the front of our van. We stopped at Kurunegala to have some rice and curry (a food I’d be getting a lot of this trip) before pressing on to Yapahuwa. Once there, we gathered our gear, said goodbye to the Anaradhapura kids and set off on our first hike. Upon doing so, we encounter our first obstacle: Stairs. There was an ancient stairway with giant steps leading up to the next bit of level land, followed by another set of stairs. These stairs were a struggle to get up with their combined steepness, size and quantity, and I was lucky to make it to the top. We stopped a couple of times afterwards to take pictures of the view on the way up, but the best pictures we took were obviously at the top. The view allowed us to see our next hike destination, as well as take a few nice pictures of our surroundings. We sat near the edge of the rock for a bit after taking pictures to rest and take in the view.
Once we were done, we hiked back down, stopping to practice compositions near the large stone gate we walked through on the way up.
After we reached the bottom, we had some lime juice and ice cream before heading to Back of Beyond to drop off our bags and change. We eventually got back on the buses and headed to our next hiking destination: Piduangala.
The hike was fun. We stopped on the way up again to take some pictures of the lying Buddha, but took most of them on top. this was one of my favourite locations as there was a lot to photograph. I even took one of my exhibition photo “Milk on the Rocks” there, featuring Ben standing at the end of a pool. We climbed back down almost in the dark and topped the night off with a nature walk searching for Grey Slender Loris’ (which we didn’t find).
Day 2 – tuesday, January 21
We looked around for things to photograph, spotting monkeys that were too high up to see well enough and chasing the Jungle Fowl. I ended up following some others and taking photos on a swing we found. Eventually we packed up our stuff and began our journey to Sir John’s Bungalow in the Knuckles. We stopped on the way to take some photos near the river, only for it to rain and us have the rest of the journey with less stops.
“Swang” (Credit: Alex Parr)
Before arriving at the Bungalow, we stopped near a slanted hill, full of cow-poop-littered fields and carnivorous flowers. We spent some time on the hike up to find and take pictures of some Nannophyrus Marmorata frogs. I did not get any good pictures, but believe we may have cut ones leg and killed another.
We finally reached the other side of the hill, a steep and dangerous cliff. Being the risk-taker I am, I asked permission to stand on the furthest rock out and immediately proceeded to do so, taking pictures of everyone else and posing for some more. In my attempt to climb back, I almost fell off twice and my bottle slipped out of its pocket and shattered on the rocks below. This was an issue as I still needed to stay hydrated for the rest of the trip. Nonetheless, we headed to the bungalow without much other struggle.
When we got there, we had some time to update our journals, speak with two botany and animal experts and have dinner, before heading out on another night walk (where I found a crab).
“The Boys” (Credit: Alex Parr)
Day 3 – Wednesday, January 22
I woke up full of dread knowing that today we would have our longest hike. Thankfully, we only got about 3 km or so before giving up due to heavy rainfall, making very little progress, despair and losing both our teachers then our guide. While in the moment it was not fun, I knew in my heart than we would not have to continue, as I was struggling. One the way back we faced another challenge: Leeches. It was short lived, however, as we had Axe deodorant and Muscle spray to kill them slowly.
We headed back to the Bungalow and rested before waiting for the rain to die down and heading to the same place in search of more Nannophyrus Marmoratas. On the bus ride there, I noticed the majority of, my bus mates were male, so I decided to remove my shirt and attempt to continue the evening completely topless except for my camera bag. While several others did join me, we were told to put our shirts back on (being the rebels we were though, we took them off periodically throughout the night as well as on the bus ride back to the Bungalow). After we found the frogs, we also started searching for other animals and discovered 2 unbelievably large geckos, a herd of cows (likely the ones guilty of pooing everywhere) and some vipers, which I was not present as I fear snakes and stayed in the bus.
The night was topped off with an exquisite dinner of chicken and pasta, and anything else that wasn’t roti, rice or hoppers.
Day 4 – Thursday, January 23
Day 4 was probably my favourite day. We left the Bungalow and most of the morning on our way to Nuwara Eliya, the coldest destination of our trip. I really enjoy the cold so I was excited. On a side note, we stopped part way and I had a whole Swiss Roll my myself, all 800 calories. We finally arrived at the Jetwing after driving through the city. It was then that I noticed all the pubs and other English-style buildings that made me realize how similar it was to my home country. The hotel was the same, with stylized wood and a big commonplace fireplace, as well as thick duvets on the beds and floral curtains, all reminiscent of England.
We had a nice lunch there before going to Victoria Park. We spent a large portion of the day there, searching for a rare bird and photographing many more. It was there I found the subject for another of my exhibition photos, “I think he’d enjoy some Shwarma.” i enjoyed bird watching much more than I thought I would and got to hang out with some of the people I hadn’t previously.
That evening, we went on our final nature walk near the back of the hotel. We found some more frogs, but we were all tired at that point and were somewhat disinterested. We did, however, head to a second location and I captured a couple other photos I really liked.
Day 5 – Friday, January 24
Before we left, we managed to get to the highest point in Sri Lanka. We practiced portraits on the way and weren’t allowed to take pictures of the radio tower on top, but standing in the clouds and walking around was fun and new, so I really enjoyed it. We also stopped on our way down to take some photos of the hillside on the way down, but we couldn’t get out.
“Highland Homies” (Credit: Mr. Lockwood)
It wasn’t hard to enjoy my last Week Without Walls trip. I know that the experience is something I will cherish, even the long hikes we took when we had buses and the plentiful amounts of rice and curry I grew tired of quickly. I had a lot of fun taking obscure pictures with my friends and killing each others leeches with body spray, hunting for rare birds and unknowingly photographing the wrong ones. I learned, I grew, and I think by the end of it, I was better.
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