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Published: November 9th 2016
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Day 9
We didn't sleep too badly considering the rain storm brought a flying insect infestation into the room, and Russ spent 10minutes swatting them away from the mosquito curtain whilst deciding on the best course of action to get rid. Once the rain stopped they seemed to disappear and all we were left with in the morning was evidence of a number of casualties.
The porter/waiter/ everything man brought us a brew at 5am, but was early so it was a good job we had anticipated this and set the alarm for 10minutes before. We collected our things together and headed down to collect our breakfast picnic, Russ having opted for cheese also today.
You know you are in Asia, when you stare out across the valley as the sun is starting to rise and you hear the chanting from aBuddhist temple, a horn beep, a dog barking and a very loud bird starts calling.
We set off towards Yala National Park, which is Sri Lanka's second largest park at over 14,000ha. It is part of a much larger area, but visitors are only permitted in this one zone, as the wild elephants are too dangerous.
At about 8.30am we arrived at Tissa close to the park to pick up the safari jeep and driver, and sat and had our breakfast picnic, before continuing the 45minute journey to the entrance of the park.
Once inside, our driver stopped to talk to a jeep that was coming out, and it became evident that leopards had been spotted, 3 of them. Our driver immediatly put his foot down, which on a dusty road with vehicles coming towards you isn't easy. We took a left turn and saw there were already four or five vehicles stopped with all passengers craning their necks to look through the bush to see them. We took up a position on the row behind, which really was a stroke of genius, as we didn't have to move to let other vehicles get a look, and the driver could reverse and go forward to get us better viewpoints. Once you had got your eye in, we could definitely see 2 leopards, one more easily than the other, with the second swishing his tail. Eventually the first leopard got up and started walking towards us, prompting a scream from a Chinese lady in the jeep
in front, causing everyone around her to tell her to be quiet. She clearly thought it was coming to eat her. The leopard sat back down again allowing us to get some better shots of its head. Then, all three animals got up and walked off into the undergrowth.
Cue mad rush for jeeps to try and anticipate where they might emerge and try to cross over the road. Our driver took up a position for a while with some other drivers, and after a but with no action we moved, then through the undergrowth we spotted them on the move, and amazingly our driver got the prime position for us to get shots and video footage of them crossing right in front of us - fab. NB photos are on the big camera and we've no lead.
In some respects this rather spoilt us, and having been on safari previously in some of the best National Parks in the world, it was difficult to see how they could be topped. That said, our driver tried his best to showcase the best of the rest of the animals and birds that Yala had to offer - elephants, crocodiles,
apes, toucans, green bee eaters, deer, fish eagles, buffalo, peacock, mongoose and an profusion of different sized lizards.
Our lunch stop was along side the river and the driver pointed out the monkeys that were in the trees and advised us to leave everything in the jeep where it could be locked away. Lunch was curry, done 4 ways, with red rice and popadoms - or we would of had popadoms if they hadn't been stolen by a monkey! Indy and the driver spent most of the meal threatening the monkeys with a stick, before they gave them the leftovers.
In the afternoon, we hunted in vain for another leopard sighting, and the brown sloth bear, but to no avail. We continued to see a wide variety of birds in particular, as well as rabbits!
As we headed out of the park, our driver continued to stop and check that we hadn't missed any sitings - we hadn't all the drivers were saying the same.
We returned to Tissa to collect the car, and then onto our next destination of Mirissa. Going through Tissa, we saw that a number of the villagers seemed to be using
the water in the river next to the fields to get a wash in, before it was going to be let through a sluice gate to the fields that the farmer was turning over with his rotivator.
On the long drive to Mirissa, and as we started to lose the light, it became apparent how difficult driving in Sri Lanka can be. On a minute by minute basis you have to negotiate the stray dogs, wandering cows, bikes with no lights, motorbikes also with no lights, tuk tuks that pull out and stop randomly, buses that generally have no back lights at all and stop suddently frequently and the same evasive moves on the opposite side, with oncoming cars using their full beam !
We finally reached our hotel at 7.30pm, and said goodbye to Indy here as his programme commitments were such that it would be a different driver coMing for us to take us to Colombo. Our hotel here is run by very friendly owners - one of which is a Scottish ex-pat, and the cup of coffee on arrival was the best we had had all holiday. They also gave us a few recommendations for
places to eat out.
Duly armed with this, we headed out and walked along the beach to get to Zephyr. The place was heaving, full of surfers, and we managed to get a table under the verandah before a big group arrived. This was a good job, as before long big spots of rain had people abandoning their table and the staff rushing to accommodate as many porpke as possible undercover. It didn't last very long, and the hardy ones stuck it out. We coundnt stay too late, as we were up for whale watching in the morning - tuk tuk collecting us at 6.15am!
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