It’s weird how you truly feel alive when you’re faced with immense danger. When I envisaged a casual hike up the tea country in Sri Lanka’s Hatton district with my little brother, I had no idea that things would literally escalate quickly.
We started off with gusto, running up the designated national pathways with ease while the sun was firmly on our backs. With a GoPro strapped onto my snapback (I didn’t want the head strap to mess with my hair obviously) I was anticipating us two to take it up a notch and push ourselves mentally and physically.
And indeed this happened, as before you knew it the clear-cut pathways ascended into thick and bushy forests, with the light beginning to quickly fade away as the mist overcame the mountain we were climbing.
Luckily I had a massive steel forged camera monopod with me, which served as an impromptu machete as I cut the denseness of the forest that was beginning to encapsulate us. So we climbed and cut, and climbed and cut some more, as our physiques were tested to the extreme (never mind the fact that I was unadvisedly doing this with a tear to the articular cartilage in my left knee).
As we reached the top of the mountain, we realized all our efforts were worth it – as I witnessed what truly was one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve seen in my life – the purple and orange hues in the sky seemed to look like Sri Lanka’s own version of the Northern Lights. It’s a sight that I shall hold close for many years to come.
Yet as Newton called it oh so many years ago, what comes up must come down – and before you knew it the light was gone completely. We were stuck on top of a mountain with no lights, no phone, no water and worse of all no bloody clue how to get back to camp.
It was fine though, as I knew as long as we made our way downward we’d still make it back to the camp relatively unharmed. Oh how wrong I was. Within minutes of beginning our descent with nightfall dominating the atmosphere, there was a noise. A noise so chilling we both stopped in our steps, looked at each other with the ‘holy shit we are seriously fucked’ look.
With wild boars and cattle plentiful in the tea country here, there is no great surprise that leopards roam these lands. So when we heard the magnificent yet frightening-as-hell roar, I knew this was going to get rough.
Without thinking we ran like hell down the mountain, not caring a bit if the overgrowth of the forest was tearing our legs to shreds, twisting our ankles with every missed step, and stretching ourselves to limits we had never previously explored.
Half the time we ran down, and the other half we slid down at a dangerous pace – making events like tough mudder seem like a serious walk in the park compared to this. At this point the snarls and growls had begun to quiet down, which was a major cause of relief.
With lights in the distance we flung ourselves towards civilization, in the process, crossing over waterfalls, avoiding being shredded by barbed wire and the wrath of angry landowners as we trespassed their properties hurriedly.
Walking along the main road back to camp was a moment of pure joy, for we had conquered the mountain and dodged the threat of the leopard (take that Tarzan’s parents!), and ridden our adrenalin the whole time like never before.
After a little bit of needed recovery, I’ll 100% get back onto some more climbing and exploring, but for now – can someone pleeeeease bring some seriously strong painkillers to my bed?
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