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Published: October 4th 2017
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Pardon ! Cet article sur notre randonnée de 5500 marches (de nuit !) pour atteindre le haut d'Adam's peak (ou Sri Pada) n'est disponible qu'en anglais !
The alarm wakes us up at half twelve (no, not midday!). It is very hard getting up after barely four hours of rest but we cannot change our minds now. The tuk-tuk is coming to pick us up. We are climbing a mountain, at night, to see sunrise from the top.
At half two, we meet with our newly made friends Marcin (from Poland) and Kaine (from Australia). There are several trails that go to the top of Adam's peak but the shortest (and steepest) is the Hatton trail - which is the one most tourists and pilgrims choose. We start walking and see a sign next to a bell saying "ring the bell once for each time you've been here" so each of us rings the bell once. Looking back, I don't think we should have as none of us had been there before! Next awaits an intersection and we make the mistake of going 'the tourist way' where we have to stop to make a donation. A man wraps a bit of white string around our wrists while saying something in Sinhalese. He explains it is to protect us during our ascent. Once everyone is protected and has £2,50 less in their pockets, we continue walking. We cannot see much around us, which is probably a good thing as it means we cannot see how much we still have to climb.
Climbing this mountain peak means going up a very very long staircase of 5500 uneven steps. In the dark.
Surprisingly (at least for me), going up goes well. We find our pace, or rather Marcin (who has done a few nighttime hikes and is therefore nicknamed Mr Professional) sets the pace for us. We stop when we see a young woman who obviously has hurt her ankle. She tells us it's because of a leech, and Kaine gives her a plaster to try and stop the bleeding. We go on ascending. At some point, there is a little shop with men selling rottis (some sort of pancakes) and tea and a dozen tourists are there resting so we stop and get a tea. My rotti tastes very sour but the others find it nice so I think I'm much pickier than I thought until Shaun tries it and tells me this rotti doesn't taste like the others.
After 25 minutes of rest, we still have half an hour of climbing (at least that's what the men selling the rottis say. We quickly realise it will take us a little bit longer than that.
We arrive at the top about half an hour before sunrise, it took us about two hours and a half to make our way to the top... And it is very disappointing! Not only we cannot see anything (even once the sun has risen!) because it is cloudy (and at 2,200 meters, we are in the clouds!!), but the top of the peak is not very nice. There is an old-looking building in front of us and the temple is closed as it is off-season.
In the temple is supposed to be the 'sacred footprint' - depending one he religion, it is believed to be Buddha's, Shiva's or Adam's (hence the name of this peak!).
At 6am, we decide to start our descent. It is raining, we all are very tired and descending is much more painful. I had dread that descent as I had a bad experience last time I had to go down a peak. In Austria, a few years ago, I dislocated my knee cap - and although it 'relocated' itself, the pain made the descent hell. My father, my brother and a kind random guy took turns to carry me to the bottom... But this time, I was wearing a knee cap support. It took us more than three hours to make our way down. Because we hadn't seen anything on our way up, we had no idea how long we still had to walk. At every turn, we thought we were almost there but it turned out we were wrong. It seemed unending!
When we finally got down, Shaun and I said goodbye to our friends and hopped in (or rather slowly climbed up) our tuk-tuk as the driver had been waiting for us all this time. The drive back to our guesthouse was very nice, with beautiful sceneries. Shaun took pictures and politely listened to our driver while I collapsed and fell asleep. We come back at about 11am, get breakfast and go to bed...
After a day and a night of rest, we will be making our way to Ella with our friends Kaine and Marcin!
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