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I love traveling, seeing new places and experiencing new environments. I love traveling with people, I love traveling alone - each trip is an awesome and unique adventure. If I could travel all the time, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
One of the best parts about my trip to Sri Lanka was getting to spend so much time with my family. Not only with my parents, but also with my Aunt and Uncle. I have always said I have an awesome family, but after this trip feel that sentiment even more.
My uncle was one of the more adventurous ones of our traveling group, and we got to do a lot together. Horton Plains, a National Park and world heritage site, requires a fairly scary drive up the mountains to get there. In addition to a beautiful waterfall it also contains "World's End" - a sheer precipice with a ~3,000 foot drop. Not much for aggressive hikes or heights, most of my family stayed back while my uncle and I went up alone.
Though it was overcast on the way up the mountain, things cleared up quite a bit as we entered the park. A hiking path through the park guides you through the three major sites, so we decided to hit the full circle.
Our first stop: Baker's Falls.
The sun was starting to get quite hot, and the mist from the falls felt amazing.
Also: Rainbow!
The path was clear to follow but not necessarily easy - we had to do some scrambling and some fancy footwork in certain areas to avoid mini catastrophes.
After a few hours of hiking, we arrived at World's End. Even though it was a bit overcast, the view was still exquisite - and the drop overwhelming!
A view without compare:
While we were checking out the view and stopping for some water, a few hikers came up the other way and snapped a photo for us. Here's me and my uncle:
And me, sitting at the edge of World's End:
After our brief rest, we continued on our way - roughly half the park still left to explore.
If I get a chance to make the hike again, I'll hit "Mini World's End" first.
Here's an example of one of the paths we had to scramble down.
As we were walking the last stretch of the path, a monkey jumped out into the tree in front of us! I tried to snap a decent shot, but this guy was REALLY quick.
A nice view of the plains, nestled into the top of a giant mountain:
We didn't see a huge amount of wildlife - aside from our last monkey friend, that is. But as we walked out of the park, we could hear tons of monkeys screaming and playing in the trees around us.
We left Horton Plains at the top of the afternoon, back in time to join the rest of our family at the bottom of the mountain for some tea.
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