Hey!

This was my climb to see the sunrise at Sigiriya. The site doesn’t open until 7:30, but there is a hill close by, called Pidurangala, from the top of which you can see the sun rising on Sigiriya. So we left the hostel at 4:30 for our adventure.

As I started up the hill, I discovered that the elastic in my walking stick (which I hadn’t used for years) had stretched out, and each time I lifted it from the ground, it came apart. The next thing I discovered was that this was not walking up steps. It was more like clambering over rocks. I was soon left behind.

The bad news is that this was the first time on this trip that I experienced vertigo. I reeled from rock to rock, dizzy as a drunk. I am a determined person, but when I got to the boulders in the fourth picture, I just could not figure out how to get from one to the next. I had to give up.

The good news is that I was sharing a clearing on the hill with a sleeping buddha, and I was able to see the sun rise. I put a knot in the elastic of my walking stick to tighten it and made it down the hill without incident.

I got back to the hostel before breakfast was over, but I did nothing else the whole day. 17,844 steps on my pedometer that day – and what steps they were!

Hugs,
Ruth

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