It’s really early when the alarm clock rings, 4.30 am, in order to be ready in time for our drive to hortons plains. A parc which often idealized as the most beautiful, as un Sri Lankan, as fantastic. The drive takes us over high mountain roads, lots of hairpin bends, all the in dark. Then suddenly the sun rises over the mountain ridge, time for a short stop, after which we continue out 1,5 journey towards the parc entrance. In the mist comes out a moose, wandering on its own in the early morning. A fantastic sight. Parc entrance process is pretty straightfoward. Locals pay 60 rupees, tourists pay 1800 excluding more than 1000 rupees service
fee. But the process goes smooth. Time to enjoy parc. Wonderful views over rolling lightgreen combined with darkgreen hills partly covered under a blanket of morning mist combined with thick forrest with lots of plants growing on the trees, with lots of twisting and curling branches, make the plains a wonderful sight which remember ne of the Nyaka plateau in Malawi. The pathways are easy going, with lots of dirtpaths, sometimes a bit rocky, uphill and downhill
and in the forrests strong thick treetrunks create natural
staircases. The rocks on the paths are sometimes beautiful
painted in lots of shades of grey, pink reminding me of
Bolivia. After 1,5 hour of walking we arrive at the small
worlds end, a 300 meter deep ravine, unfortunately filled
with cloud, mist and the sun being not yet high enough, makes
us moving on quickly of what should be the highlight: the
real worlds end. Its just half an hour walk or so, but from a
distance its clear that our view here also won’t be 100%
clear, but stil its an amazing sight, to look down from the
edge of the cliff, 800 meters down, or more. The hills on the
other side of the Canton, hundreds of meters away, are
surpassing eachother one by one, creating a spectacle for the
eyes. This reminds me of colca canyon, Peru. After relaxing a
bit, hoping the current clouds slide away grom us, we move on
towards the waterfalls in the parc, named Bakers falls. But
after fifteen minutes walking in the direction of the falls,
we return to worlds end, hoping the views have improved.
Unfortunately not, but actually we knew that already. We move
on to the falls, not spectacular given the other falls we
have seen already. But the location in the midst of a thick
jungle is supreme. It’s a steep path down to get there. But
the result is a fall nicely hidden. We pump up the speed on
our way to the exit, a small hour from the falls. Mostly over
open plains. We see the clouds slowly taking over the land.
The rain will soon come. Time to get home.
13/3/2013