It was an hour past midnight when my fellow adventuress left
Colombo that was right about time I finished packing up our tents and all the
rest of the camping gear, having myself
come home, to Kandy only at around ten
or so late at night after a gruesome five hour journey from Colombo. I was tired
and I hit to bed to grab a couple hours of sleep, my counterparts who avoided
the weekend traffic came to my house in just about two hours or so. Soon after
a few sips of milk we all got into Pathum’s station wagon and went our way
about through the Kandy town passing kundasale and Victoria along the Kandy
mahiyanganaya road and right after we passed the hunnasgiriya town we took a
left on to a by road which took us to kalugala village, all part of the vast
knuckles range in the central part of Sri Lanka. There we met Hinibanda, and
his son whom work the fields growing crops on a typical day but this weekend he
would be our chief guide on our quest.
After freeing up our bowels
we started on our hike up to yahangala plain, we all had somewhat heavy
bags all packed with items necessary for the next two days, I was hoping
against all odds that it won’t be a cold night as I did not pack my sleeping
bag this time thanks to yohan my good friend making a pillow out of it :P the
two guides took steady pace but we would soon fall out, may be our bags were
heavier but even they had one sack full of utensils, soon we climbed up to the
plain and glimpse of yahangala came into the picture! It was sure a site that I
have never seen. The landscape looked very different even foreign at times as
the lush green grass stole much of the space but few dimples of trees that made
it a perfect plain. On our right looking down was what we could see the dry
zones of Sri Lanka, it was harvest time I believe as the paddy fields looked
brown and dusty, the haze didn’t let us have a picture perfect view but it was
still a great one.
We hiked on to a cave which was the shelter for the night;
this had been used by ancient Sri Lankans as a gutter was chiseled out to keep
the rain away, which you can see in many caves especially on the dambulugala
viharay. It made a perfect campsite as there was a tiny brook which ran almost
past it, we were quick to go have a look and soon Dinuk wanted to dam it up so
that we can build a small pool of water big enough to bucket out water to wash
ourselves, it proved to be a good investment as we later enjoyed the cold water
baths in fact I had many of them :P as I
went back to the cave I found yujith and pathum dozing away under the cool but
before any one got into heavy sleeping we got a fire going and then cooked
lunch, after eating a nice lunch we all went into an afternoon nap.
We walked the breath of the plain to the edge where the
kalugala village and its paddy fields sat right below us there I was able to
see “knuckles mountains” far yonder and I was told that the meemuray village
sits right below it. We were there for most of the late afternoon most of the
time I was eyeing on yahangala itself which we needed to climb the next day, it
was a beautiful giant rock which to me looked as if it was held up by glue and
on the verge of crumbling down. God’s Glory and his works of creation always
amazes me!! I sometimes wonder whether he spent a lot of time on very detail
but yea Our God is beyond time so I wouldn’t
We walked back to campsite passing yuj’s bog spot; Yuj never
fails to bring some topic of this sort on our adventures. We all took turns to
have a bath with the water that collected it was nice and cool J and very refreshing, I
do enjoy my baths out in the wild! While a couple of us pitched the two tents
under torch light the other two started preparing dinner! Surly this was a camping trip where we
decided to cook more often, it was surly a nice treat! Eating warm food do
brings in a nice boost. Soon afterwards we found ourselves in our tents trying
to catch some sleep, snuggling in wasn’t an option because I had two sheets to
which I was very thankful as the ground was very cold which spreads all over
you. I remember waking up thinking our tents were on fire, that was a nice
funny topic in the morning.
Leaving the morning chatter we soon started off with our
quest that made us drive a 100miles and a half a day’s trek, spend a night in a
nice cozy cave at the bottom of the very mountain, Yahangala that stood in
front of us to be climbed. I was soon starting to be a bit worried as the two
of our guides always manage to have two opinions as to how best to climb up to
the top, I learned as we were climbing that both of them have peaked only once
before. We stepped through grass that are a good feet taller than I they are
razor sharp and leave plenty of cuts on your arms, I felt a bit lucky to have
packed the raincoat as I got into it which protected me a great deal. After the
tall grass cleared away we faced a rock face which stood perpendicular and
extremely hard to climb, I wasn’t surprised when the two guides took two
different ways to get to the top, with difficulty we managed to climb the rock
face this was only the beginning, scaling of rock faces later became our very
thing that took us to the top. On our descend this rock face proved to be
interesting and challenging as we all hugged a vine to climb down, I held that
vine for my very dear life felt like Tarzan but surly I wasn’t the man for that
role.
Our joy of scaling the rock face was soon overshadowed by
the task ahead as pathum found his slippers of little, actually no use as he
abandoned them for the rest of the climbing. I was extremely proud of the sheer
commitment Pathum brought in him, with no complaining whatsoever in spite of
his fears of heights, he did it barefoot and descended on his butt, descending
might have been funny at times but respect all the way! I was scared for our crew’s safety as we were
scaling up the mountain; at times we only had a few inches that kept our feet
on rock and the rest of the body leaning against the giant rock face helplessly
hoping beyond all odds that, that inch would keep us tumbling down like humpty.
I never believed in seeing the top instead believed in each
step I took, scaling each rock face brought us to yet another rock face that
looked even more impossible, I constantly prayed that Christ would be our guide
on this trip and take us safely up the mountain and back. Our water was running
out, there was a cloud cover that looked like it would eat up the whole
mountain and swallows our tracks that we needed to get back home. The element
of having to turn back was very real and was even in an option in my head even
though I didn’t share it with the rest of the crew. At one point pathum stopped
I don’t think none of us had the assurance of saying “it’s going to be okay
lets push off again”, we didn’t know whether it is going to get any better, our
guides by this time proved to be extremely good at scaling rock but may be not
really the fact that they know the way up. Halfheartedly in my own words I told
pathum “see that rock line climb until then and let’s see the possibilities”.
We were soon on our feet and to my disbelief that rock line proved to be the
end of scaling, and even more to see pathum way up the mountain on his own! We
were all surprised in a happy sense.”
With the happy jokes returning on pathum’s revival we were
all climbing up the mountain, and as sudden as it could be we were on top of
the mountain, and the threatening clouds seamed to vanish into thin air. It was
a site I have never seen before, the other mountain range so close to us right
under our noses standing tall quite the steep once, not the usual I have seen
before. But was reminded of the once I saw while on my way to Big Bear lake in
CA with akki and ammi. I was tired and
exhausted, but the view and the joy of conquering swept away the fatigue. And
to my surprise we even saw a few rabbits jumping around on the mountain.
We all sipped into a few drops of water as we spent some
time on the mountain tops, regaining our breath back, only knowing we had to
get down, get down safe. Climbing down has always been the tougher one for me
but may be not this time even though our muscles were very week and at times
they fail to respond in giving the support needed, we managed to climb down
safe. Not forgetting that I did have a moment where my heart simply skipped a
beat as I slipped down but I bolted my arm up helplessly to grab anything
around it, happy to know it hooked itself to a crack along the rocks that kept
me from snowballing down the mountain.
No adventure comes easy, this was not the easiest, as much as I know the dangers, would love to go again, again to Yahangala, to the wilderness!
No adventure comes easy, this was not the easiest, as much as I know the dangers, would love to go again, again to Yahangala, to the wilderness!
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