At the end of the world

I work Monday, Tuesday and Friday in a Sinhales school in Mutur and Wednesday- Thursday in a pre school in Kinnya. Last Friday was Teacher day so I achieved to skip the boring function and get the Friday off!  So I joined Fabien, a French couchsurfer in his " alt ernative" trip to Horton Plains.

View from the bus

Horton Plains is a National park in the central highlands of the country with amazing clouds forests and spectacular mountains! Our trip started in Trinco at 2 p.m. then we changed 6 busses to arrive at 2.30 am to the final destination, Belihuloya , a town in the middle of nowhere but with an alternative path heading to the national park.

It is an alternative because you can skip the 40 dollars entrance plus transportation expenses. I knew when I read his profile it was going to be fun!
The first night in Belihuloya, the driver highly suggested a very expensive guest house, but obviously we found  a cheaper place, free camping ...once awake we discovered we camped in a school yard!

The climb was on at 7 am. The path was very tough, 30 km uphill and it took 10 hours to arrive on the top of the mountain through a tea plantation.Even though it was hard, the landscape was astonishing, with several waterfalls where we stop for bathing and refreshing.

On the top of the mountain we had to cross 3 km of very dense and tangled jungle with precipices in some spots...

 I got worried on the very last part, it was getting dark and after running inside it for one hour the jungle looked neverending!,

 Eventually we found the exit to the World End...an amazing sky plenty of stars welcomed our accomplishment but 11 hours of hiking and a sleepless night made us sleeping like babies!
The sunrise was spectacular,, I would suggest to everyone heading to Horton Plains to spend the night over camping because it was simply breathtaking!

Then we took the normal tourist path, only 8 km to go back...the national park is nice, but if I had to choose I would do it again, two completely different landscapes and some doses of adrenaline ;-)

Once out of the park, luckily we found a lift that avoided us 11km and eventual problems when approaching the entrance gate,cause we entered in to the park through a forbidden entrance skipping the 40$ plus risking to get lost into the jungle....Our saviours were 2 Libaneses tourists(brother and sister) heading to Nuwara Eliya,, double luck cause we were also going that direction.
Nuwara Elyia is a beautiful British style city, very rich compared to Mutur.

 Also the food is fresher and cheaper because is plenty of fertile lands...If you ever come to Sri Lanka, this area is a MUST! I really liked the atmosphere thanks also to my buddy traveler :-)