On the day to Kitulgala we met in school early in the morning. Usually everyone would’ve been sleepy or half asleep if it was a normal day, but maybe because of the excitement the DP orientation trip gave them, they seemed more awake than ever. Talking about the Week Without Walls trip from 9th grade, when we went to the same Kitulgala base camp, and what we were looking forward to this trip which will only happen once in our lives.

I was planning to sleep on the way to Kitulgala because I was tired in the early morning, but I only fell asleep after chatting with the people on my bus for hours.

We stopped in front of the broadlands power plant and their dam, blocking the water from flowing to the river keeping the water levels too low for rafting. Leaving behind the beautiful sight covered to unseen by humans, instead we walked up to canyoning. There was a funny happening when we were getting safety vests and helmets, as I have a relatively large head compared to other people, so they had to figure out the biggest helmet and gave it to me.

In my memories, this place was full of leeches, and it still was, but what was different was that unlike 9th grade now I knew how to deal with leeches, and didn’t see them as gross, harmful creatures. Sometimes I was not even bothered as I left one on my leg at one point saying that it helps blood circulation. After some walking, we saw wet rocks with natural paths leading us downwards. All of us stayed down following the instructions for safety, and kept in mind the signs we use to tell the guides “I’m ok” and the meaning of the whistle patterns. Then we went down the canyon jump after jump, slide after slide, fall after fall. Everytime someone did either of them, everyone else encouraged each other, and pulled each other up from the water. The weather was hot, the water temperature was nice and cold, but it turned out it was too cold for one of our friends, so we came up with an idea. About 3 other boys including me hugged him and wrapped him around from different directions. It definitely looked weird according to the people who watched us do so, but the friend we wrapped ended up saying that it was quite warm, this was fun, and somewhat helpful for the cold one.

After canyoning, we had a short break for lunch and went rafting. Rafting was a great memory from the 9th grade Week Without Walls for me, and so I had high expectations. First thing we did was to learn the signs, such as when we needed to get off the edge of the raft and sit inside for drops, and when to paddle, and when to jump up and down while sitting when the raft was stuck. I remembered from last time that jumping when the raft is stuck wasn’t a rule that time, and it was new. It was because the water level became lower because of the dam holding the water from flowing down. After getting used to the signs, we started to go down the stream, there were 3 levels of drops, 1 being the easiest and 3 being the hardest. We went down about 3 or 4 level 3 drops, and two of them were hilarious. One time we went down a drop, and we looked back, and the guide wasn’t there, so we looked around, and suddenly he popped out from the water, and tapped on his head, meaning that he was fine. The next level 3 drop, the guide told us to squat inside the raft, and so I did, but I was a bit late, and I flipped backwards ending up on my back. It was sort of embarrassing, but everyone seemed to have fun, so I’m happy with it.

After the drops, the water was quiet, so we jumped out of the rafts, and floated back to camp. When we arrived, we had a cup of chicken soup, time to shower, and had dinner, which was surprisingly better than I thought, because the last time I was here I had a really bad stomach ache, I guess I adapted to local foods. After eating, nothing much happened, students were chatting, we had our reflection time of what we did, and then we went to our cabins and closed our eyes for the next day.

Sun rose up for the second day, we woke up early and went upstairs for a morning routine. I thought we were gonna go for a morning jog like last time, but instead we did some yoga instead which was quite relieving, and painful at the same time because I’m not much of a flexible person.