Up is always worth it.

Carrying on with the journey through SL.  From rainy Trinco I made my way to Sigiriya very, very, very early in the morning.  Seems that most travel here starts anywhere from 5 – 6am and it’s usually your best bet to get on it.  Early morning, rain and drizzle followed me, but skies cleared as I arrived in this street long town to work out a plan.  Point of attraction – temple/palace thing on top of an enormous rock that leaps strangely and severely out of gentle rolling hill surroundings.  Concocted a plan to climb the smaller rock next to Sigiriya temple rock to get the best view of it.  Rented a bicycle and made my way to the temple of this smaller next door neighbor rock but foolishly (and typically) didn’t fully investigate how to get to the TOP of this rock.  I had read that there was a small rough path behind the temple so I start looking for exactly that, a path.  Follow one, it ends at a bunch of big boulders.  Go back, try another path, and another, and another all either ending nowhere or back at the same temple.  Then I apparently start suffering from dehydrated delusions.

Determined to get to the top of this rock face that is surrounded by fairly dense forest, I decide to just start hacking through, Rambo style (minus any cool weapons), heading for the general direction of up thinking of course I’ll find my way back.  At one point, after crawling and pulling and rock climbing myself up a steep bunch of vegetation covered rock, grunting and groaning like meatheads in a sweaty gym, I look down from where I’ve come and say out loud to myself, “this is the dumbest thing you have ever done.”  I had no idea where I was, was precariously perched on the slippery edge of NOT A PATH rock, clinging to shallow bits of roots and grass, and no one knew where I was.  Easy enough to die in a second, dumb enough to think I wouldn’t.  With quivering knees and only by the grace of every god in the sky, I made my way back down off the edge and as I caught my breath and looked around … *whimperwhimper mooooooannnnn*  Now where do I go?!?! 

No idea which way to turn in the middle of some damn Buddha forest at the base of some rock face that there was no way I was going back up.  And I know exactly why this has happened.  Yes, I’m dumb but there’s another reason.  Since I was alone at this big cave temple Buddha (who was under construction and not finished being built), I thought it would be funny to take a sassy little picture of me kissing Buddha on his lips.  Yeah, apparently he wasn’t in the mood and hence, I was lost in the middle of Sri Lankan jungle forest, his act of retaliation.  Fair game.  Nicely played, Buddha.   

After calmly talking myself through a survival plan and two facefulls of hysteria inducing spider webs, I manage to find my way back.  I walked up to a different Buddha shrine and apologized for offending him with my kiss then gave up on finding the top of the rock.  Sort of.

Down at the parking lot I saw a vehicle and no people which meant someone was up there, someone knows the way.  Stubbornness will be the death of me.  Back up I went, try number four at these murderously steep steps, back to the Buddha I kissed (with a much more humble approach this time) and just as I decided to sit down and wait until someone showed up, they did!  Three white faces and a local guide!  Where’s the path?  Where’s the path?  Where’s the path? (oh please don’t tell me it’s an enlightenment thing.) They showed me the very first path that I had followed well over two full hours ago and said that yes, it does end at a bunch of massive boulders, I just have to scramble up over them.  So, a journey that should have taken me a total of less than 30 minutes I managed to stretch out into a death dance and a 3 hour trek.  Well done, Janice, well done.  BUT!!!

I made it!  The top of this rock face was spectacular.  And yes, as I was on my own, I threw my backpack to the ground and did I proper happy dance wiggle in celebration.  The view was worth every foolishly stupid near death decision that I had previously made.  It was gorgeous.  See facebook photos.  As I hung out and ran back and forth across the top of this mass of bare rock enjoying this ‘I am the only person in the world right now’ feeling, I remembered that I still wanted to actually get to Sigiriya, the big mama.  Out of nowhere, a guide shows up.  Turns out that the people I met weren’t too convinced that I’d either be able to find my way up or down the rock so sent someone looking for me.  Where were you two hours ago when I was bawling in the forest, buddy?!?!  I’m fine NOW!  But still, nice of them to care.  Down, down, down.

My fragile body biked over to Sigiriya and paid the heart stopping fee to get up this rock.  As I grumbled over my budget being eaten away as fast as me with a couple of Reese Peanut Butter Cups, my miserly misery was soon replaced by awe and then a bit of fear.  There are staircases, rusty, crumbling, narrow staircases, bolted and winding along the outside of this sheer face of rock leading up to the palace ruins at the top.  The shaking in my knees was no longer to do with the pain of the effort.  I saw some turn around and head back down, not able to continue on, I saw some clinging desperately to the railings and leaning as close into the rock as possible, and I saw others head on up, oblivious to the curling fingers of death tickling the bottoms of their feet.  I was determined to be one of those confident ones.

I strode up and up and up.  Much higher than the Buddha forest trek I had just done 4 times unnecessarily.  When I stopped to take photos (which means I was actually catching my breath), I was barely able to calm the panic in the pit of my stomach that threatened to overtake me whenever I looked at how flimsy the construction was upon which we silly sheep were standing.  And this, my friends, is low season.  Apparently there are hundreds upon hundreds of pilgrims who push and pull over each other to climb this same route at certain times of the year.  I was alone on some stretches of the staircase and was cursing the fact that I had eaten breakfast as it added just that much more weight to the steps.  Wow.  What a climb. 

That being said, it was again worth the effort and the fear as the views were ZOOOOPAAAA and as it was nearing the end of the day, almost all mine.  Nice one.  The way down was nowhere near as treacherous, fewer cliff edge steps, and I was quite pleased with a ridiculously over-exerted but successful day.  Now give me my bed.