October 8 Tissa – Yala National Park

Mongoose

Baby Elephant

Spotter Deer

Eagle

We had a day long safari in Yala National Park. It was a 5 AM start with a retired F1 driver! The roads in Sri Lanka are quite good and the drive to the park was on paved roads. The “jeep” we were in was high and narrow and Iwas nervous of some of the tight corners. As we neared the park we joined the convoy of safari jeeps and we were not out of place. After we entered the park the roads were sand/ gravel, but there was a speed bump every 500 meters. They don't fool around with speed bumps here – we crawled over every bump at 5kph. This is why there was no road kill in the park. Our driver, Jagath. had promised we would see all the animals in the park. We didn't see the leopards but we did see the rest. I was surprised by the variety and the accessibility. We were not allowed out of the truck, but the animals seemed quite comfortable being watched by a truckload of tourists. Some were shyer than others but we saw plenty of animals. When we stopped for lunch the driver served us rice and curry followed by a siesta in the heat of the day. We napped for about 2 hours and than back on the road again. Riding along bumpy roads hanging on for dear life was more tiring that I expected and by 3 pm both Joan and I were tired, so we did one last sweep for the leopard and headed home. Just before the gates we came across a water hole with over 30 animals of various kinds having their afternoon water break. It was an impressive goodbye.