Finally after a long lapse - a trip to Yala

It has been rather hectic for both my husband and I. Housebuilding takes all of your time and energy and thus we have been unable to venture out into the wild since February of this year. But finally we managed to squeeze a trip to Yala.

We left Colombo around 2.30 p.m. on friday the 10th of August. We reached Yala - that is - the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society bungalow around 7.45 p.m. Two groups of friends had gone before us one on Thursday and one had turned up around 6.30 p.m. that same day. We were exhausted from the long drive but very certainly happy to be in one of our favourite places. We had dinner which was a very simple meal of rice and some curries and turned in for the day as we had to be up rather early to go on the game drive the next day. That night was not such a peaceful night as one of the little kids had a teething problem and kept me up most of the night with her constant crying. My husband who was beside me was completely oblivious to all these happenings slept like a log.

We woke up early on Saturday and after a cup of tea and some sandwiches we headed out into the park. Since it was a weekend we expected the park to be crowded and trackers hard to come by. Having anticipated that my friend who came the previous day thought it would be best if our vehicle followed theirs as we had only one tracker for two vehicles. Much to our disapproval we complied. It is rather difficult when you do not have a tracker for your own vehicle as the second vehicle always misses out on opportunities as often the subject goes off or as in the case of a bird flies off when the second vehicle approaches. Another factor is dust the second vehicle gets to literally eat the dust raised from the first vehicle - and when you are allergic to dust this is not necessarily an enviable position to be in.

The day turned out quite ok when in the morning my husband spotted the tusker who is known as "Thilak". He decided to come up close and personal, threw some dust into the air in front of us and then meandered off again away from us. He continued on his journey into the jungle. We thought he would come to the water hole which is known as "Diganwala". Giving it time to do so we did the full loop and came to "Diganwala" and true enough he was at the said waterhole. His legs seemed to have been wet but we were not too sure if it had drunk at this waterhole or somewhere else. He seemed rather annoyed at the whole troop of vehicles in hot pursuit of him. He just turned and walked off into the jungle.

We then continued driving endlessly in the hope of spotting something - anything! when at a place called "roundwala" at "medapara" there were about 5 vehicles stationary watching something intently. Driving up to one of the jeeps we were informed that there was a leopard. He was seated under the shade of a tree cleaning himself - he had obviously just had a meal as his stomach indicated it too!! We observed him for a while before he decided to get up and walk right past us into the jungle, pausing a while to take a look at the onlookers. He was probably disturbed by the three jeeps that came racing to the spot, probably having had prior information of the location of this magnificent beast. We then drove back to the bungalow where we had breakfast and then relaxed till lunchtime. Had a late lunch and lo and behold it was almost time for the evening round.

The evening round brought us to the same place - "medapara" where this time the same leopard had decided to climb a tree and go to sleep. But alas, there were to many vehicles for his liking, with kids screaming and so much noise that the leopard snarled and jumped off the tree and wandered off into the jungle. We headed back to the bungalow rather happy at what we had seen. Once at the bungalow we had our dinner, our showers and it was nighty night once again.