Wildlife Spotting

Besides its tea and amazing breakfasts, Sri Lanka is also known for its wildlife. There are a few elephant 'sanctuaries' but the rumours going around about animal welfare were less than promising and so we decided to steer clear. Instead, we opted for an open-air jeep drive through Minneriya National Park, the home of watering ponds frequented by upwards of 300 elephants. 

At first, things were slow but soon elephants began to amble out of the forest, just a lazy little walk down the dusty roads.

The park is home to a large lake and grassland area that attracts lots of interesting birds as well as the elephants: 

As we got closer to the local watering hole, female elephants and their offspring gathered. Respectfully, the jeep drivers backed off and gave them their space. 

And on the way home, a male elephant with a sense of wanderlust meandered down the side of the road. Somehow he'd made it off the acres and acres of wildlife reserve and people paid their due deference to his huge presence: 

Later in the week, as we made our way to the beaches near Trincomalee, we had the chance to interact with the beasts of the sea. We started with a simple snorkel, though the currents were incredibly strong. The beauty of staying on a beach with limited development meant that we got to know the local community. We made friends with the proprietor of a local hotel whose business had lived through the Sri Lankan Civil War only to be decimated by the 2004 tsunami. Unsurprisingly, water and wildlife conditions were affected too--local coral and reefs were only starting to recover, only to then be affected by tourism. As a result, our proprietor friend was big on ensuring that the local government limited the number of tourist boats that made it to the local island reefs. We were lucky enough to be on one of these snorkel boats and our guide was big on explaining the human effects on the environment:

Visibility was middling but we still managed to see a rather imposing-looking black reef shark. We were assured that he was human-friendly but I still managed to scream through my snorkel.

On the second beach day, Rosa and I gathered up the courage to put our Scuba licenses to good use. Back with our local company, a very nice, rather young looking Sri Lankan man took us out to Swami Rock, right off the coast of Koneswaram Temple, a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. As legend has it, local people would throw statues of the various Hindu gods into the ocean in front of the temple for good luck/fortune. The ensuing waters in front of the temple are dotted with the remains of Ganesh, Shiva, all in miniature:

Diving down we didn't expect to see much exciting with such limited visibility: 

But there were some good things of note. 1. The invasive lionfish--consider these guys the drunken uncles of the sea. No one invited them, no one wants them there and yet they make their presence known:

2. A slowly meandering sea turtle!

And there were the various homages to Hinduism dotting the shallow sea floor. All in all, a good reunion to diving.

This wasn't the end to our Sri Lankan trip. We still had to endure a knuckle-grippingly fast ride from Trinco back to Negombo, the beach town close to the airport. We knew it would be a tricky ride when our driver (not Shane) swigged a clear liquid straight from a marked bottle of white wine and played the Craig David interview CD on repeat at least four times.

We lived to tell the story and had a surprisingly nice time in Negombo. The beach was just meh but it's not a bad place to waste a day. Between our cheap Ayurvedic spa treatments, $5 spicy crab for dinner and a spot of shopping, it was a peaceful conclusion. By the end of it, we were firm believers in Sri Lanka. It's special. It gets in you. I mean, everything but the white wine and Craig David, of course.