Post #10. October 9th

Today we are heading towards Uda Walawe National Park.  But we can’t go before I have one last breakfast on their outside deck.  On my way up to the restaurant I come up to a woman picking tea.  I ask her to show me how to pick tea and she shows me the way.  She pinches the part below the two leaves and bud portion on the stem and breaks it off and then gathers it into her hand where other picked leaves are being held.  She’s picking with both hands.  Once she her hands are full she places the leaves in the bag and proceeds to pick more.  I try and follow her and am so painfully slow compared to her.  I asked her if I can take her picture and she agrees.

The tea picker on the steps leading up to the restaurant.  She could pick very fast.  

We are on our way down from the mountains of Ella to the flatlands of the central provinces.  The vistas are beautiful with lush green mountain valleys stretching off into the distance.  

One of the valleys we drove past on our way down from the mountain.  

There are many waterfalls on the way to our next destination.  We stopped at Ravana Falls to check it out.  It’s right off the highway.  As we walk along I spot a man selling rocks.  Almost all was clear quartz (at least I think it is).  I pick up one of the rocks and ask how much and he comes back with 1000 SLRs, about $4.25 CDN.  But I’m not carrying my wallet and so I tell him that I have no money and start on my way.  He gestures for me to have the rock.  I have about 300 SLR in my pocket so give him that and then take his picture.  At this point I figure out a new way to carry money with me at all times.

The falls are very pretty.  I did make my way to the place where the people are standing and took some pictures.  It’s fun to be so close to the rushing water.   

I also went further up and found a small pool where a woman was doing her laundry at a small pool.

The mountains we were on that morning eventually flattened out into a plain.  We are near Uda Walawe National park which was formed to be a buffer area when the Walawe River was damned to form a large lake. The Uda Walawe reservoir provides a water source for the wildlife, especially wild elephants and provide a safe space for them. 

We also come across this wildlife road sign. There is an electric fence on the park side so it should be rare to see these elephants crossing the road.  But they have been known to knock down electric fences by pushing trees down on them.  

We arrive at our camp in the late afternoon.  It’s located adjacent to Uda Walawe National Park.  We’re greeted by the camp director, Solomon, and our bags are quickly unloaded.  We have a cold beverage at the main tent and then we are led along the path to our tent.  

Our tent is a heavy canvas tent. It has a lock to secure the screen opening zipper pulls together because the resident monkeys have learned how to use zippers.

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The front bedroom.  There is another bedroom attached to this room and an ensuite 3 piece bathroom behind that. 

It’s a rustic room.  I keep my bags fully zippered; the last think I want is to open it and discover some crawly thing.  Eek. 

After getting ourselves settled in our room, we had lunch outside on the grass, on a table complete with table linens.  Our server let us know our options and we had a lovely lunch before we rushed off to visit the Elephant Transit Home; an elephant orphanage for babies to 5 year old youngsters.  They are released into the wild after that point.  On the way as we enter into the Uda Walawe Park area we can see the large body of water.  

At the Transit Home we get to watch feeding time.  The handlers try not to touch the elephants so that they do not get used to human touch.  There are about 75 elephants a this point.  This number has increased to over 100 in some years.  

The elephants are led to the feeding area in small groups so that the staff can feed them in an orderly way.  A large funnel attached to a large hose is used to feed milk to the young elephant.  A few of the smaller elephants are fed via a large feeding bottle fitted with a nipple.  After feeding, they pass in front of the viewing stands towards a small watering hole and a pile of fresh grass to eat.    The smallest of the orphans is very cute. 

Feeding time.  These elephants are fed milk via a large funnel and wide diameter hose.. 

Post milk feed.  They gather together and most concentrate on heating long grasses put out for them.  

After the Elephant Transit Home visit we drive over to Uda Walawe National Park to take in a 2 hour safari.  We’ll be entering the park and our tracker will do his best to point out the resident wildlife.  The ride is sure to be good and bumpy.  We’re in open 6 seater jeep vehicles. It’s the low season so at most there will only be a few vehicles.  There is a lot of competition among the vehicle drivers to find and places their vehicles in the prime spot.  It’s different from our safari experience in Botswana where all the vehicles were from the same camp so they all worked together and shared their finds.

If you’re wanting to spot elephants, the good news is that there’s hundreds of them in this National Park.  The best time to spot them is before or after the heat of the day.  We see lots of wildlife and I’m able to capture some of them on my big lens camera.  We drive over to a watering hole and find a family of 5 elephants grazing.  There are already 3 jeeps sitting and watching this family and we pull up and join them.  The elephants are used to having jeeps drive up.  They’ve learned they’re not threatening, so they basically ignore us.  

I’ve never been that close to a wild elephant.  You could hear them breathing and feeding.  The experience filled me with awe.  In addition to the many wild elephants we saw, there were water buffalo, I missed a dear, and several species of birds.  The safari was very excellent.

After the safari we came back to our camp.  It was dark now and we needed flashlights to make our way to our tent.  The camp supplied a wonderful surprise, an aromatherapy foot bath.  Not only did the warm water very soothing, it also smelled great.

Aromatherapy foot bath.    

Then it was back to the gathering area where our dinner was ready for us.

We had a great dinner outside on the grounds.  It gets pretty dark out by 7:30.

After dinner we had a a campfire.  It was more of a bonfire as the logs were about 5 feet high and they were trussed up in a teepee shape.  The logs were lit and there was an occasional splash of kerosene to entice them to keep burning.  We moved our chairs to be around the campfire.  There was about 10 other people at the camp from Germany which looked as if it consisted of three families.  We had a camp host, Navidu, who instigated a campfire sing along.  The only western song he knew was We Will Rock You by Queen.  It’s an odd choice of songs to know for a sing along campfire experience, but I’m game and sing along with him.  After that, we got him to sing a Sri Lankan song and he did a nice rendition of a tune about two people in love.  Judith suggested Country Roads by John Denver as a campfire song, so we taught it to him.  We were connected to Wifi, so that made all that learning accessible.  

It’s about 10.00.  It’s off to bed.  We’re rising early tomorrow at 4:00 for a morning safari.