Now I am not really an animal person, I much prefer aquariums and beaches to anything cute and/or fluffy. That being said, Sri Lanka is famed for its wildlife and so I felt obligated to do something wildlifey whilst on my trip. The one that was the least out of my way geographically was Udawalawe National Park and its elephant residents.
I managed to get a car to drive me from Weligama to Udawalawe, which was more expensive but saved me many hours on a bus. A not pleasant experience just trust me. The car was great, I crashed out in the back and fell asleep, mostly to combat the travel sickness from the windy roads.I was staying in a huge house next to the lake just a few miles from the national park. I booked a safari with the hostel owners husband and that was that. very easy. I ended up in with a few other travelers who were very nice, they were very into the elephants though. lots of 'oooh' and 'aaaah' and 'isn't it cutes'. We were driving for about twenty minutes before coming across our first elephant.
In total, we saw over 40 elephants (we tried to keep track as we were going but lost count very quickly), buffalo, jackals, deer, snakes, lizards, crocodiles, waders, kingfishers, eagles, hawks and loads more birds that I don't remember the names of.
I found the crocs far more interesting than anything else. We drove to the far end of the lake and sat on the mudflat for a bit until we noticed two medium sized crocs who decided to entertain us and started fighting. We were only about to watch for a few minutes but it was fascinating.I wasn't hugely enthusiastic about the jeep safari but had a good day regardless. We only did a half day trip which was a very good idea, 4-5 hours of bouncing about and we were more than ready to head back to the hostel.
No comments:
Post a Comment