World's End, Horton's Plains, Sri Lanka
Once, in Cornwall, England, I trekked to Land’s End. In Horton’s Plains, Sri Lanka, I hiked to the End of the World.
Sri Lanka’s highlands—sometimes referred to as the “hill country”—conjure a stunning contrast to its coasts, yet both hold the kind of beauty capable of taking your breath away. Craggy peaks plunge dramatically towards narrow valleys, steeply cut and lushly green with a tangle of tropical vegetation or else terraces of immaculately manicured tea plantations. Morning and evening mists and clouds further evoke the mystical aura of a world mostly lost except in books and imagination.
Traveling the roads in the hill country requires skills, guts, and perseverance. Most “highways” are merely two lanes with occasional lapses into a single one—depending on one’s route—and they wind endlessly up a “hill,” over a “hill,” and down a “hill” in a continuing pattern of repetitions that extends a 100km journey into multiple hours. Fortunately, the view is always dazzling and often includes fascinating details of the human experience in an environment so startling and different than other places we spend our lives.
The Walk to the End of the World
Belive it or not, frost iced the grass and leaves when we commenced this jaunt about 7:45am. Elevation counts even at the equator!
Me, on the final run to the top... Jennell, just a bit below... and then together at World's End.
First, we took the arrow to the left to World's End; then we continued with a jaunt to Baker's Falls. (Waterfalls motivate Jennell to hike like nothing else.) Here is Jennell at the completion of both routes, about three hours after we first began.
A tea plantation near Nuwara Eliya.
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