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The Fool on the Hill: A Trek up Sri Lanka's Adam's Peak
| Article
# : |
12778 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1987 |
4,212 Words |
| Author
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Richard Bangs
Richard Bangs is the author of Island Gods, Whitewater
Adventure, and Riding the Dragon's Back, which won the
Lowell Thomas Award for the best travel book of 1989. He
is the founder of SOBEK Expeditions, an international
travel-adventure company, which has become part of Mt.
Travel-SOBEK. |
On leaving the island of Andoman and sailing a thousand miles, a little south of west, the traveler reaches Ceylon, which is undoubtedly the finest island of its size in the world…In this island there is a very high mountain, so rocky and precipitous that the ascent to the top is impracticable, as it is said, except by the assistance of iron chains employed for that purpose. By means of these some persons attained the summit, where the tomb of Adam, our first parent, is supposed to be found.
- Marco Polo, 1293
Like the cheek of a baby girl, the sky began to blush. Then there came faint rows of primrose light, that changed presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the jungle horizon. The stars grew pale and paler still, until at last they vanished; the citron moon waxed wan, and its mountain ridges stood out clear against its regal face, like the bones of an emperor; then came spear upon spear of light flashing far across the boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist until the rain forest was draped in a tremulous glow.
Then, as the last drops of darkness drained from the sky, the supernatural tableau presented itself - the incipient sun to my back threw a gigantic shadow of perfect triangular proportions across the mist-spun awakening countryside. The umbra, a huge, dark cone, was cast by the mountain (upon whose peak I stood) that towered over the pear-shaped island like a pyramid hewn by distant very large gods. The magnified morning shadow of this rock and jungle promontory superimposed itself for miles over tea plantations, villages, and folding ridges, creating one of the most awesome natural sights on earth. And it got better: The Specter of the Brocken, a rare event indeed, raised its curtain - my own immensely amplified shadow stretched over the vista like that of some Brobdingnagian visitor. It floated on distant wraiths of mist, looped by a rainbow halo. As quickly as it appeared, the shadows of peak and person began to shrink, as the sun rose behind me. In seconds the shadow had vanished into the bedrock, and butterscotch sunlight poured over the panorama all the way to Colombo and the plate-blue sea.
I opened my eyes and I was slapped by the thick, cold fog that wrapped around me like a wet sarong. Visibility was about four feet. For all I could tell, I was swimming underwater in a colossal cup of chilled cream soup, the most distinct sight being the blurred fingers of my extended hand.
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