Sigiriya Rock - The Lion Mountain

The Sigiriya Rock - The Lion Mountain geocache (GC1MCV5) rises in the middle of Sri Lanka, on a plug of solidified magma - the hardened core of a long-eroded volcano - that bursts out of the jungle some 180 metres above the plain. At the end of the fifth century, king Kassapa had its flat summit fitted out as a citadel: pavilions, gardens and pools, protected by wide moats. A monumental brick lion guarded the stairway up; only its two paws are left. The site has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1982.

Halfway up, a gallery shelters the frescoes of the maidens, and the mirror wall carries the graffiti of the visitors who came to admire them between the eighth and the tenth century: hundreds of verses left by travellers, a thousand years before our logbooks.

Created in 2009 by MountainNinja, the cache is an earthcache: no box to look for, you prove your visit by answering the owner's geology questions and photographing yourself at the top, GPS in hand. All that is left is to climb the steps. It was voted geocache of the week in September 2021, then kept for the annual selection.