Sri Lanka 2 - High lands and beaches

Buddhist Temple in Matara 

Greetings from Sri Lanka again,

We left Kandy to head to Nuwara Eliya as previously mentioned. On the second day there we went to a place called Horton Plains, which is a cloud forest about 2000m above sea level. It seems to be the only place in Sri Lanka that has frost. The forest is descended from one of the oldest forests ever known to the earth, so the Sri Lankan forest authority took great care in ensuring that it was protected, which was nice to see. The theory is that when Sri Lanka and India broke off from Antarctica and moved north towards the equator, only this forest remained unchanged over time due to its elevation, where as the lower lying areas changed in accordance to the large temperature increase.

Burning monkeys isn't cool, but it was kind of a cute sign 

We went on a 10k hike through the cloud forest and saw some incredible views of the area. One place in particular, called the "edge of the world" reminded me of something you would see in Avatar or the Last Airbender; it was really cool.

Looking down a 1000 foot cliff

Panoramic view of the worlds end cliff

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Didn't see too much wildlife save for some wild deer. One of them had been tamed to the point of not being afraid of humans, so I got my picture taken with it. It's funny, because in the US when we see a deer we think about what a nuisance it is, where here we were all taken aback with it's beauty. It was different than American deer in that it had a much thicker coat, so that was neat.

Another part of the hike included a fairly large water fall called Baker falls. I've seen plenty of waterfalls in my life but this one was unique mainly because of the tropical vegetation around it; giant ferns and small palm trees. It was like something you see in the movies, or on that TV show "Lost" that was on a years ago.

Baker Falls

The following day we headed down to Matara and Polhoma beach. This place is great. We get served fresh fruit every day, and we walk about 5 minutes to a beach that is right on a coral reef. We spent most of our first day here snorkeling and looking at some really amazing fish.

Breakfast featuring Papaya, Mango, Pineapple, Bananas, and juice containing all of these things. 

Buddhist temple on an island near our hotel

Bird Bath at our hotel 

We were having lunch by the ocean yesterday and we saw a whole bunch of crabs crawling around the rocks near where we sat. Then out of nowhere a giant Monitor lizard came up and started chasing the crabs for his meal. It was quite a surprise, but I'm slowly getting used to the fact that big creatures will show up randomly here on this island.

Surprise lizard

Today and tomorrow we will snorkel some more (and try to avoid sunburn) and then we'll be heading back to Ngumbo (where the trip started) and staying a night to get ready to get back on the plane to head to Georgia, and back to winter.