Sri Lanka day 11: A Tale of Two Safaris

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I think some people have a different interpretation of the sounds of the jungle than me and think that the incessant chattering isn't the sound of animals but their own yabbering gobs. The jeep's engine is turned off, the animals are doing their shizzle and....blah blah #$¥€#%# blah.....SHUT UP!!!
Thankfully this didn't happen much this morning but, as you may be able to tell, it did happen. Most of the time we were on our own enjoying the incredible scenery and amazing wildlife.
We'd had a lie in until 4:45 so we were raring to go when our jeep and driver turned up at 5:30, especially as our hotel manager had got up early to make us hot drinks. The journey to the Udawalawa (sounds like a cue for a King Kurt song to me) National Park was about 10km and we had Claire's favourite jeep so far. I liked the leg room, the comfy seats and the fact that this one has a roof. Claire's only downside was that her feet didn't touch the floor....
Along the way we saw an elephant and some stunning views. There are mountains in the distance with low lying clouds, lakes and lush greenery in front. It was easy to take a lot of pictures of this while we were on safari too especially while there was a lull in animal action.
While the hope was to see a leopard our driver told us he'd only ever seen one twice here. Come on let's make it thrice! (I am writing this inbetween safaris by the way) He said there were 25-30 here and we only wanted to see 1 so I don't see the problem.
Our first animal sighting was a herd of elephants that passed just a few feet in front of our jeep which was absolutely amazing. People in the other jeeps were being quiet too which added to the moment. You can't beat seeing animals in the wild with the real sounds of the jungle; it really is magical.
I saw an anthill today in the shape of Mow Cop castle so it shows the ants read my blogs. A great start but maybe a but too specialised though guys, maybe try somewhere more people will know?
I am sick to death of peacocks now. What are they doing here? Why aren't they hanging around English country gardens making their infernal racket and refusing to open their tails? Here they scuttle around imitating interesting animals and generally being a bunch of wind up merchants whilst looking as smug as some of the people on safari. Yes you're in a jeep on safari, so am I you smug looking git! One peacock did open its tail but put it in before the jeep stopped. Well thank you very much. Not!
So what else did we see I hear you cry before I keep on whinging. Well, we saw jackals, a mongoose (although this might not be a mogoose any more as a pack of jackals were chasing it), spotted deer, wild buffalo, water buffalo, a monitor lizard, a gecko, langur monkeys, one macaque and loads of birds, some of which were mildly interesting. But only mildly. And no leopards....but there's always this afternoon....
On the way back a couple of elephants were very close to the fence and one had managed to get inbetween the two fences. A local was selling chopped fruit to tourists to feed to the elephants but this gives the wild elephants a bad dependency on humans so we didn't partake. Then a wildlife chap came along and shouted at the elephants to get back into the park and they lumbered away. Again we had been just a few feet away from them. Amazing.
We had breakfast when we got back and this was another huge affair. We then lazed around writing blogs, Claire did some macro, we saw a fabulous iguana and are waiting for 2pm when our next safari is due. We haven't been on safari since last week so we felt it best to do two today.
Later.....
Well this afternoon's safari turned out to be a damp squid (copyright The IT Crowd) to say the least. It had rained inbetween safaris but then abated by the time we set off. A bit of drizzle hit us on the way so the front flap of the jeep went down. As we went round it got to storm stage with thunder and lightning.
Our driver went to put the side flaps down but we said no as we wouldn't be able to see the animals....the irony being that the animals had all scarpered from the rain (except the goddamned peacocks of course!). Then it became a battle of wills as other jeeps were riding round with both sides down and some with one but we stuck it out.
And got soaked. With no pictures. And we definitely didn't see any leopards or the crocodiles that had been mentioned for this afternoon. We saw a few distant deer, a few elephants, a couple of monkeys at the top of a tree, buffalo and birds of course. We kept looking up forlornly at all the leopard trees (trees where leopards should be of course) but to no avail.
But hey, at least we didn't put the sides down....
It was the worst safari I've ever been on for lack of animals and our guide kept apologising at the end. Not his fault of course, probably ours for bringing good old Stoke rain with us. The temperature has dipped to 24 degrees and we were actually quite cold when we got back....what with the sides being open and everything.....
Thankfully we have this morning's safari to look back on with fondness and I guess we'll just have to go to another country so hopefully Claire can see a leopard in the wild.
Thankfully we had booked dinner at the hotel as I didn't fancy going out in this weather. We have enough wet clothes as it is. Hopefully tomorrow will be better as we have some travelling and sightseeing to do.

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