Yala National Park & arrived Mirissa

Hi all,

Yesterday, we set off from Ella at 9.30. On the way to Yala National Park we stopped first at Ravana Falls, a three tier cascading waterfall. The falls have been named after King Ravana from the Ramayana which is literature about stories and events from ancient India. According to legend, Ravana kidnapped princess Sita and hid her in the caves behind this waterfall, because Sita’s husband sliced off Ravana’s sister. Regardless of the violent story - the falls were beautiful!

We were then back on the bus for a while. We saw a wild elephant by the road before stopping in Kataragama for lunch at a pastry shop. Our pastries cost about 20 cents each, I’ll miss how cheap the food is here. We had to take an alternate route to get there as more protests were taking place yesterday.

Next, we checked into Big Game Camp Yala, our accommodation for the evening. When the itinerary said camping at a national park, I was picturing what Rob and I did in Africa for six weeks - tiny, hot tents with a crap “mattress”, no power, shower/toilet blocks and the risk of running into wild animals in the night if you needed to go to the toilet. This could not have been further from that. We were 5-10 minutes drive out of the national park, and it was more like glamping. We had proper beds, electricity, a fan and even an en suite in our tent!! We were very pleasantly surprised.

We set off for a Safari at 2.30pm. Yala National Park is split into five blocks, but only block one is open to visitors. The park is 1260 square kilometres in area and is home to the highest concentration of leopards in the world. There are said to be 50 of them in block one which we visited, and 500 in the whole country. Unfortunately we didn’t see any. Just one of those things I guess - I saw one in Zambia and one in Tanzania at the end of 2017. But I was sorry for Mum to not see one. Never mind. Apparently here they are a lot bigger because they are the apex predator so they eat more easily, whereas in Africa they have to compete with lions, cheetahs etc.

However, we did see lots of other excellent wildlife. Land monitors, langur monkeys, spotted deer, elephants, eagles, kites, hornbills (which were a lovely surprise - didn’t realise they had those here!), green bee eater birds (beautiful blue and green colours), water buffalos, wild boars, Indian hares, crocodiles, the endemic jungle fowl (national bird of Sri Lanka - Rob’s guidebook describes them as “inelegant, like a feral hen”) and various other birds. The closest we got to a leopard on this Safari was waiting 5-10 minutes when our driver could hear a “monkey alarm system”, some monkeys making a warning noise that usually indicates one is nearby. But alas, no luck.

It started to rain and we headed back after our four hour Safari. We enjoyed a barbecue pork and chicken dinner and a beer. Then Mum went on a night walk with a few of the others, but I was fading fast at this point. This was the first option I had passed up so I had done pretty well. Mum said they saw a few more birds and animals, and a fence that an elephant had recently knocked down!

With the help of our fan, we slept fairly well until our alarm went off at 5am for our morning Safari. This was optional and 8/15 of us opted to go. Mum and I shared a vehicle with Viviane and Carlos. The experience was different in the morning - calmer, more intimate/private roads and animals a bit more lively and closer due to the cooler temperature. Sadly, no leopards still! But I did read that there is approximately one per square kilometre in this block of the park, so we must have had some near us.

We saw a few other animals today as well - mongoose, a beautiful blue bird which I think was another species of bee eater and a Sri Lankan squirrel. We also saw lots more of the other animals from yesterday. The most special moment of today’s Safari though was rounding a corner of a quieter road and seeing a lone male elephant. For five minutes we sat staring at him while he stared at us. We watched him eat, and throw dirt on himself to cool down. Apparently elephants drink 150L and eat 200 kg of food per day! The Sri Lankan elephant is a subspecies of the Asian elephant. These days there are approximately 4000 elephants in Sri Lanka, up 1000 from a 2007. They are the highest concentration of elephants per square kilometre in Asia. Considering that Sri Lanka is 65,000 km squared and Tasmania is 68,000 km squared, that makes sense. Only 1/10 of male Sri Lankan elephants have a tusk, which helped them be less of a target for poachers. These days their biggest threat here is urbanisation and habitat loss.

We headed back to the camp, packed up and drove towards Mirissa. Overnight, the government raised the price of petrol here again. As you can imagine the people here are not happy, so we had to take a slight detour which took a bit longer to avoid protests that were occurring. We saw some people holding 'Gota Go' signs on our way (Gota is the shortened name of the president).

Once we arrived in Mirissa, we checked into our room. We have four nights here which will be really nice. We went for a swim at the beach. Mum got knocked over by a wave and laughed her head off with me trying to help her up while more waves came. The water was really nice and warm. We went for a quick swim in the pool too and then had a shower. Afterwards, we went for a walk on the beach and saw some baby turtles released into the ocean, before enjoying a drink at a beachside bar. It's lovely here, I am grateful we have a few nights.

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox