The Hitt Family: Sri Lanka

Day Four

Jameson was so happy to be at Heaven Seven!

We left our hotel and headed down the mountain to go white water rafting on the Kelani River in Kithulgala. It was really hard to get a good picture from inside the bus, but it was a beautiful trip. Traveling through the mountains was not the most comfortable ride though! It was a very curvy road with lots of switchbacks. It was hard to tell if we ever drove in a straight line for longer than a few seconds!

Here's a clip of us going through a little town. A lady got too close to the traffic around the 0:13 mark and got smacked by her husband!

The town post office.

Here's a video that gives an idea of what the drive down the mountain was like.

We finally made it to the white water rafting place! We had never done this before, but have always wanted to so we were pumped! One of the ladies at the rafting place watched Jameson and Talia so that we could all go on the trip.

We suited up in lifejackets and helmets and jumped in the back of this small pick up truck.

It was like a clown car full of people! I think we ended up with about 19 people in the bed of the truck! Once we got to the drop off point we realized that there were a couple of guides riding in the raft strapped to the top of the truck!

Some of the kids were too small to raft the entire trip so Beth stayed with them to meet up with us a little further down river from where we started.

A raft on a tuk tuk. Now that's something you don't see every day!

We made it down to the river!

We're ready!

Harry started out in the raft with me, but ended up getting moved to the other one before we started.

Me and the Reed girls!

We got a very brief run down of the different commands the guide might give us and off we went!

It was more fun than I even imagined it would be!

Here comes Harry, William, and the Guillorys!

Will they make it???

Everyone's still in the raft!

Of course the views as we rafted down the river were incredible.

Hans and Christian steered the front of our raft.

I'd say William was having a good time! Hahaha!

This was a favorite activity for most of the group!

After going down a few rapids we met up with the little kids and Beth.

They were the cutest things with their little paddles!

They need more practice rowing! LOL

The rapids that we went on with them were obviously nothing compared to what we had experienced earlier, but we wondered what they were going to do with the kids when they got to rough water. We cracked up laughing when they went on their first rapid...the guide must have told them to get down (a command that we were even taught) because all of a sudden the four little ones in the raft fell to the inside. All we could see were their little helmets poking up from the middle of the raft!

The rode out every rapid that way and it was adorable! They were having a blast!

When we got here everyone was allowed to get out and swim.

Adrienne jumped out of our raft but came right back!

And had a heck of a time getting back in!

There was no way I was getting in the water though! I was okay with the idea of falling off accidently, but I definitely wasn't jumping in on purpose!

Back in the rafts and ready to finish off the trip.

They thought they would be funny and splash us...but we got them back!

Nice try! LOL

Next up...a friendly little race.

We let them think they won. Ha!

Here we are getting to our stopping point. You can hear how excited the kids were to beat our raft to the bank. Then around the 0:14 mark you see my fellow left side rafters fall out! My feet were still tucked in the boat and I think that's the only reason why I didn't go with them.

We stopped at a hotel restaurant for lunch. It was pretty nice and overlooked the river.

Water buffalo across the river!

Hello Hans!

We traveled a rough 88 miles round trip that day.

Day Five

We had a big day ahead of us! We were set to hike Horton Plains National Park. The beautiful park is near Sri Lanka's second and third tallest mountains. The word "plains" is a little deceiving to me because when I think of plains, I think of flat ground. It. was. not. flat. It actually forms a plateau that is over 6,500 feet high! We decided the night before that we didn't want to bring Jameson on the hike so I took Connor while Harry stayed with him at the hotel.

The drive to get to the entrance was nothing short of terrifying. We climbed up a long, narrow, windy road and I was pretty sure we were going to drive off the cliff at any moment. We were taken in two separate small vans and were told it was because the bus couldn't take us and we'd see why when we got there. I was soooo thankful we weren't on our big bus! I was having small panic attacks as it was in the little van.

We saw sambar deer right away!

These are the big draws to doing this hike!

And we're off!

The trail basically makes a loop. We decided to go in the direction that would allow us to get to the World's End the fastest. If you don't get there early enough the fog will have set in and you won't be able to see much of anything.

Beautiful!

Baker's Falls! I've seen waterfalls before, but nothing like this! So awesome!

We made it to the World's End! I was pretty close to hyperventilating as we climbed up to the top. There are no safety rails and it had started to rain. Here you can see the path we had to climb in order to reach the end.

This is as close as we got. The picture makes it look like we are much closer to the edge than we really were. We didn't go near it!

I get anxiety just looking at this guy!

Even though we got there at a decent time the clouds had already obstructed the view.

Connor had the best seat in the house!

Little World's End. It was a little clearer here.

This isn't your friendly nature hike! We had to climb stuff like this! I was wishing I had brought my Fit Bit.

He was such a trooper and I was glad we experienced it together.

We had a great time and felt very accomplished, but I was really glad when we were done!

The ride down wasn't any better. It didn't help that it was raining and foggy. I took this video on our way back. I especially like when Beth wills Konrad into not getting sick. It worked! Someone threw up almost every day. We were always on guard with our puke bags every time we got in a vehicle.

We got back to the hotel to get our things and pick up Harry and Jameson. They went on a little adventure of their own while we were hiking.

***Harry and Jameson's First Tuk Tuk Ride***

One of the reasons that we decided that I would stay at the hotel with Jameson is because he wasn't feeling so great and needed a break from the long days. Our decision was made easier because we didn't have access to his car seat and the road and vehicles to get to the location were questionable and sketchy to say the least.

After a nice morning of waking up at a decent time and a nice breakfast, I made the decision that we should see about getting Jameson to a pharmacy to get some meds to help his cough and congestion.
I talked to the concierge and he arranged the hotel tuk tuk and away we went.

It was a nice, cool, rainy morning and we were happy to be on our own riding around town...UNTIL...

BONK! our driver tapped the small van in front of us. When I say tapped, I mean the slightest of rubs, but....

As you can see from the growing crowd that literally fell out of the van, they did not feel that this was a tap and it quickly turned into a Morris Bart infomercial.

The bumper grabbing and shaking began, very animated discussions ensued, and what I could only decipher from my absent Sri Lankan dialect was the driver was trying to explain that he was in a hurry to get the "sick" baby to the hospital.

This was confirmed when the driver quickly stuck his head into the tuk tuk and told me "hospital okay, say going to hospital".... Wait, what???? Immediately after that the below pictured officer of the law asked "hospital??" As taken aback as I was by the entire situation I replied yes and realized I just lied to a cop in a foreign country!

My accomplice to the crime was in a great mood playing with the random toys dangling from every inch of the tuk tuk.

Insurance building where I can only assume they debated who was at fault.

After the discussions, the driver came and asked if he could borrow a small amount of money to help him settle the claim. He promised to pay me back as soon as we got back to the hotel and got the money from one of the bell hops. SURE why not - I just lied to a cop for you so I guess that means we are friends now, right?

Finally on our way back to the hotel...without medicine or a hospital visit, but we did have a cool story to share and Jameson was in a great mood. Thankfully Jo didn't murder me, especially since one of the main reasons we didn't go was to keep him out of the dangerous vehicle situation.

And yes, the driver did pay me back.

***The End***

We headed even further south towards our campsite in Katamaguwa. It was another beautiful, but long drive!

We stayed at Big Game Campsite which boarders Yala National Park so as we got closer we started to see a lot of wildlife.

The first of many, many peacocks!

The cows roam around much like the stray dogs. Crazy!

We were greeted at the welcome tent with tea, coffee, and snacks.

The bed in our tent. It wasn't exactly camping, but definitely not the "glamping" that most of us were hoping for.

We had a functioning bathroom so I guess we can't complain too much.

Connor and Jameson's first camping trip!

On our way to dinner!

We had a nice table set up and the food was fantastic!

We had a couple of fireflies in our tent that gave us a nice show before going to bed. Unfortunately I also spotted mice droppings and heard them at one point during the night so I was pretty creeped out!

We were in the bus for 108 miles that day!

Day Six

The next morning we got up bright and early for our jeep safari. I was totally grossed out when I went to the bathroom in our tent and saw more mouse droppings! Then I saw the freaking rodent run across the back wall. Eeeekk! I was ready to get out and not go back! Other than the mouse, everything was pretty fantastic. The staff was awesome and always ready to help. They had tea and coffee out for us to enjoy before we left for the safari.

In our open air jeep and ready to go! Yala is supposed to have the largest concentration of leopards in the world so we had our eyes peeled for them the whole time.

Not long after we got started our front windshield started to fog up pretty bad so Beth asked our trekker if he would wipe it for us. Well he did some kind of monkey climb where he ended up with one leg down and one leg up and the morning sun was shining right through his sarong! And he was going commando if ya know what I mean! Haha! Gooood morning Sri Lanka! LOL

My little trekker!

Crocodiles!

The peacocks are everywhere! We even saw one with his feathers open but I wasn't fast enough to take a picture. It was awesome!

Stork!

We saw LOTS of different birds.

Sleeping on the job!

These three were on the hunt for elephants. Beth promised them ice cream if they found one.

We got our hopes up when we saw leopard prints!

Water buffalo.

So Harry almost won the prize for finding the first elephant. He swore this was a baby elephant in the distance and we all took his word for it. Turns out it was a boar! Haha! So from then on every time we saw a boar we yelled, "Baby elephant!" I don't think he'll ever live it down.

The only time we got out of the jeep was at this stopping point on the beach.

The big kids loved it when they got to play with Jameson and I know he enjoyed it just as much.

Back to trekking!

Mongoose

The Hitt and Borck kids!

A huge lizard on the tree.

Elephants!!

We actually got to see a real baby elephant!

After we left the elephants our guide heard that a leopard had crossed the road right down from where we were. There were lots of jeeps at the spot where it was seen so we kept going in the direction the leopard was going, hoping that we would see it. We sat and waited quietly. The guide even turned off the jeep. We scanned the field but the leopard never showed itself. We were bummed because it was getting late and we knew we were running out of chances to see one.

Bald Eagle!

The early morning wake up had gotten to them.

The rooster is actually Sri Lanka's national bird!

The animals just kind of wander around. I guess that's normal when you live next to a national park.

These guys were cutting the grass!

He was waving to the baby monkey.

They came up with some crazy twisted rock, scissors, paper game on the way back to the campsite.

So we didn't see a leopard or a sloth bear, but we did see a baby king cobra crossing the road!

This was our little tent in the woods.

Connor's selfies while waiting to leave the campsite.

I was actually a little impressed with this one.

Back to the bus we go!

This part of the country is very poor.

Jameson loved when the bus was stopped and he could play in the back with the other kids.

They went along with whatever he wanted to do! LOL

We spent a lot of time on the bus. We were starting to get bored! Haha!

We made it to the southern coast which was devastated by a tsunami in 2004. Our guide told us that the water got as high as the palm trees.

We made it to our beach house in Unawatuna! We rented the whole thing so we had the house to ourselves. It was so nice that the kids had a nice place to run around.