Friday 11/21/14 "You're a fool if you don't do it, but you're an even bigger fool if you do it twice" -- Adam's Peak

Friday started out like any other day... work in the hospital for the morning, was in the surgical ward today and was able to see and help with the crazzzzyyy wound cleaning and dressing. So that was fun and really interesting. I really have no idea what I'm going to do when I get back in terms of where I will want to work, I guess it will be a surprise for all of us.
After work, I met up with the rest of the volunteers and we hopped on a bus that took us to this tiny little village about 5 hours away. Since we got into town after dark, we just ate dinner and took a short nap at the hostel. At about 0200 the excitement began. We all crawled out of bed, literally.... not particularly excited for the next hours to come. Thankfully I had remember to bring my flashlight because the trek up to Adam's Peak started at two and went all night. Those who forgot to bring theirs had some problems haha. Thinking that I was totally prepared for the trek since I had been doing so much hiking in the high altitude of Peru, I had no idea what was coming. The beginning started off just fine. We passed through another village and received bracelets and a blessing from the monks which was awesome because we needed to luck. The trek was just fine until the steps started... maybe 1/3 of the way into the hike. These weren't just regular old steps, these were steep, uneven, rock, slippery/moss covered steps. Oh yeah, and it had rained pretty much the entire evening before, so everything was soaked making staying on your feet a bit difficult. Also, thankfully I had worn my hiking shoes because those who didn't have the right footwear definitely paid for it. Once the difficulty began, the group separated into smaller packs by fitness level, which made me a bit nervous for some reason because the doctors at the hospital kept telling us horror stories/warning us not to do the trek or to be extremely careful. They were telling us that hiking Adam's Peak now was foolish because it was off season (season started in mid-December I believe and is a religious outing). But, off season meant that the path was not maintained, the path was never lit, and the shops/tea stops were not open along the way. I was in the first group, apparently paving and lighting the way, and we were making awesome time and it actually felt amazing to get in a good work out when it wasn't incredibly hot. The hike took us a total of about 2.5 hours including breaks... oh the breaks. Not only were they amazing because the hike was very hard, but we would sit down and look up to probably the most stars I've ever seen, it was absolutely breathtaking. I wish my pictures would have turned out from the nighttime because it really was something special. The hike was very similar to Machupichuu except hiking up to Machupichuu and then continuing without stopping up Machupichuu Mountain except much hotter.
Once we got to the top, it got freezing. We were at about 3000 meters altitude and no one thought to bring warm clothes and dry clothes for that matter since we were soaked in sweat. We all huddled together for warmth and watched the sunrise then headed back down the mountain... another two hours and holy cow did my knees/body just ache. It was about six hours of constantly working out the body. Once we got back to the hostel, we ate a ton of food for breakfast and passed out.