Andrea

Sunrise on the balcony of Olympus Plaza Hotel was beautiful. We watched the sunrise while drinking out coffee. Today was a big day, we were going to go to the elephant orphanage. We had a 2 hour drive to the elephant orphanage. On the way we stopped at Ravana Falls. They are 25 meters tall. Story has it that the falls were named after King Ravana who hid a stolen princess behind these falls. After checking out the waterfall, we needed to head to the elephant orphanage. Our driver was a lit [...]

Today we woke up at 4:30am to hit the road at 5am. We were terrified that it would be raining as we woke up, but were happy to find out that it was just misting. This area is covered in potato farms and logging fields. It is really sad to see all the old growth trees they are harvesting. Today was our 4 hour nature walk in Horton Plains National Park in Ohiya. Horton Plains National Park is a protected area in the central highlands of Sri Lanka and is covered by montane grassland and cloud [...]

This morning we were so happy to be leaving our wet damp hotel, Kithulgala Rest House. You could not get us packed up and ready to go fast enough. It had been a rough night of sleeping, since I am paranoid of bugs, so I stayed up all night to stay watch. Learned a lot about myself, mostly that I hate bugs and would not do well in a “roughing it” trip. Our guide saw our low spirits and offered us the chance to ride the train through the tea plantations. He thought that we would enjoy it. I [...]

Once again we woke up to the amazing breakfast and luxury of the Hotel Suisse. We saw many comments on trip advisor of how the this hotel was tried and old, but compared to what we were about to go to, this hotel was pure luxury. We headed out around 9am to head towards Kitulgala. Along the way we had several stops. Our first stop was at a wood working shop. We had a guide take us around and show us all the furniture they made by hand and the different wood carvings they did. They also sho [...]

Waking up in Kandy at the Hotel Suisse was awesome, mostly because the breakfast they served in the Hotel ballroom was like stepping back in time. The ballroom looks like it was straight out of the 40s. The waiters served just like the old days. It was really charming. Our first trip of the day was to the royal botanical gardens. These a large park with different varieties of plants from all over the world. As we have once of these back home in Canada, I actually was not impressed, I thoug [...]

Today we were on the move again, on our way to one of the larger cities in Sri Lanka, which was Kandy. We woke up for a 9 am start and climbed into our car, to head out to the Dambulla Rock Temple. This was probably about an hour drive away, so we ended up arriving at the Temple around 10 am.  To get to the Dambulla Rock Temple, you buy your ticket at the base of the temple. As is apparently becoming a theme in Sri Lanka, they built this Temple on the top of a hill. Our guided warned us th [...]

Day four started out with a bike ride through the villages of Giritale. It was supposed to be a three hour bike ride finishing up with a lunch with a local. Our bike guides showed up with a truck full of bikes. We choose two bikes for us and two for the guides and got under way. The whole way of the bike ride, we were followed by the truck with the bike. We started out going along the river on our bikes and passed families washing their clothes in the river.  We also saw what our guide’s tol [...]

Today was the day me and Andrew were most looking forward to Sigiriya. /div> Looking at photos of this giant rock temple was what inspired us to book this trip. The temple was actually part of a larger rock temple complex. The short story of this rock says, a prince wanted to become King so he killed his father. Fearing that his subjects would rebel, he built his castle on top of this rock. That way he could see his enemies coming. In the en his brother taunted him out to an open field for a [...]

We got to sleep in today compared to what we were used to on a tour. This tour was big on leaving the hotel at 9-930am when I’m more used to the idea of leaving between 7 or 8 am. Breakfast was a buffet. Something that was very popular in Sri Lanka. Once we had breakfast we met our guide and drove to the cultural capital – Anapoi…. It was about a four hour drive. When we arrived at Anuradhapura and our guide asked us what we wanted to eat for lunch. This is a hard question when you do [...]

We made it to Sri Lanka. It was a long 26 hour plane ride but we made it. A few things to know about Sri Lanka. We got our travel VISA to Sri Lanka ahead of time. this was STRONGLY recommended to us, and it turns out on our transfers to Sri Lanka the airports checked it often.  So good thing to get. This tour is called Treasures of Sri Lanka. It was a private tour with just me and Andrew and our Guide. We were met at the airport by our guide. We did not know at the time that we would ha [...]

My last day in Spain. It is hard to believe how quickly the time flew. I must say that I definitely wasted my last day in Madrid. I go into the hotel at 5 am the night before so I slept in until 10 then I decided to get breakfast at the hotel buffet. Since its always a good ideas to get free food when you can. At breakfast I was able to say a goodbye to a lot of my tour mates. It was weird knowing that these people who you have become super close to, you will probably never see again. Then [...]

Last day on tour, second last day in Spain. Today is another FULL day. We hopped on the bus and has a 2 hour drive to the city of El Toboso. This is one of the cities mentioned in Don Quixote. This city did not have much other then 2 Don Quixote statues, a lot of Don Quixote nicknacks to buy, fig candies, olive oil moisturizer and a bakery. After our 15 min stop we climbed back on the bus and headed to Toledo. Before we got to Toledo, we stopped at a rest stop. All along this trip we have [...]