Let’s hike all over Ella, Ella, Ella, ay, ay, ay 🎵

28/3/22

Today we had another good hostel breakfast before Simon and Ruby came and met us and we headed out to Ella Rock. We were pretty tired from all the recent scrambles so planned to get a head start by taking Nico’s tuktuk one station closer, which would save us an hour. We had a new recruit, Menna, a girl from Egypt who works for an NGO – very cool! We got an extra tuktuk to the start and then had a tea break before we even began – Simon’s idea I think! Bloody Brits and their tea! 😂😂😂 After tea, we thanked the lady and she pointed us in the direction of the path (or so we thought!). After walking along the train tracks quite some way, and to be fair, past some gorgeous scenery, Nico realised that we were going the wrong way and where we were did not match up with the directions he had! We were all shocked that a woman whom we had all bought from had the gaul to send us off in completely the wrong direction so happily!! After a wasted hour or so walking in the heat of the day, we made it back to her cafe. Ruby in particular was very disappointed with the woman and went to tell her. I went to use her loo again and filled my water!! Then we headed off in the right direction. Maybe it was punishment for trying to take a shorter route, who knows?!

Anyway, once we were back on route, it didn’t take too long to get out of the tea plantations and begin our hike up the steep hill. It was a fair amount of cardio and in 30 degrees, quite a sweaty feat! We got to the top in an hour or so and admired one viewpoint, before buying fresh juice from an old woman (70+), who had carried all her stock up the hill herself! People seem so hardy out here! Then we headed to another viewpoint for some snaps! It was quite the view!!

Again, the way down was slow for me and I was way behind!! I eventually bumped into Menna, who was a little lost and we figured out the route back together – the problem with group walking is that you all blindly follow one person, and when they’ve gone, you’re stuffed!! We found the others at a small caf, drinking pop and petting pups!! We continued down along the tea plantations and stopped at a cafe for some much needed kottu – once again, it was waaaay past lunchtime!! Woops! We all squeeeeezed into Nico’s tuktuk for the short ride back to the hostel.

We showered and chilled in the hostel awhile before heading back out to Ella town for dinner in MozzarElla – the pizza was damn fineeee! We had some drinks in Chill, met up with some other Brits and an American, Colin from my hostel and then headed to a bar. Sadly, the bar was very chilled, so we were chilled! We had another drink, chatted and Nico and Menna had shisha. Then we headed back to the hostel in Nico’s tuktuk with an impressive six people!! Colin sat beside Nico then me, Ruby and Menna sat on the back with Simon lying like superman across us all with his legs folded into the roof! It was quite the adventure!!

29/3/22

Pretty much all my original crew were leaving today, but I was still keen to go to an underground pool in a cave that Nico had mentioned on our first day in Ella. To my luck, I managed to find/convince two hostel pals to come with me. Sweeeeet! Colin and I had to change hostels first since our original one was booked out, so we moved down the lane before heading off to the caves with Menna in tow. We arrived by tuktuk to a mountain road to find a load of men in matching tops. We had to pay on the road (there was no ticket office), and then one of these men would be our guide. We paid and set off up the hill, cutting off the road quickly into the jungle. 500 metres later, we reached a small hole in the ground and a hut made out of bamboo. We left our bags in the hut as advised, before putting on our head torches and lowering ourselves down through the hole using a rope. Step one complete. Step two consisted of a ladder through a hole which at its narrowest was as wide as my hips! This cave was not made for fat people clearly!!

Once we did that, the rest was scrambling over rocks, or just walking over (maybe slippery, maybe not) stone. We were moderately slow, but did take over one large group before arriving at the pool.

The pool was beautiful – so so clear and blue!! We swam and chilled in the cool water, which was much needed after a sweaty 800 metre scramble! After awhile, we headed back. We wanted to be ahead of the group we had overtaken since they were slower than us and there was many of them, and being in the corridor to the pool was boiling and claustrophobic at times, we didn’t want to prolong it!! We made it out of the cave pretty well – the final part with the rope climbing was not as bad as I thought it would be!

We washed our hands and faces and got the tuktuk back to Ella, stopping at a nearby Buddhist cave temple on the way. The temple was small but intricately painted in bright colours.

We chilled awhile, showered and then headed out for food at a local restaurant named Cafe Eden on the recommendation of someone at our hostel. A French girl, Julia also joined us. I had Lumpreis again, the range of curries with rice, wrapped in a banana leaf, which was as glorious as before!! This was mildly surprising since there had been a power cut for most of the afternoon and evening! There had been one hour of power between 3pm and 11pm, due to a combination of government problems and storms! We took advantage of the power cut and walked past our hostel to look at the stars!! It was beautiful, and there were even some fireflies buzzing about. Someone told me that fireflies are a sign of a complex ecosystem. Then we headed back to the hostel, Colin, Julia and I to play cards by torchlight, while Menna headed back to her hostel at the top of the hill.

30/3/22

After four nights in Ella, it was time to leave. After an early breakfast of eggs, with real coffee (yes!!), I headed to the station, via the bakery, by tuktuk. I bought a third class ticket for around 20 pence and boarded the infamous train.