In my previous post I described my stay in Tissa and Kirinda, which was a bit of a teaser to the main reason we went there. The Yala National Park safari took place in between the stay in those two towns, but I felt it deserved its own blog post. And here it is!

The people who know me, know that I love animals. Almost all my travels have included encounters with animals of some sort. The most notable encounters were the Mahout experience in Thailand, swimming with penguins in South Africa and horseback riding in Costa Rica. Generally, I prefer interactive experiences with animals. Don’t get me wrong; I liked the safaris in South Africa, but I preferred petting the cheetahs in the park over the safari itself.

Yala National Park Safari

In my post about Addo Elephant Park in South Africa, I wrote that a guide would be invaluable in big parks and this was proven even more true in Yala National Park. We booked the tour through My Village, the guest house we stayed in in Tissa. The 30 euro didn’t only include breakfast/lunch and tea in front of our room in the morning but also a luxury vehicle with seven seats. We did the tour with two others, so we had plenty of space to spread out. We sat in the front seats which I think are the best seats since we could look at animals straight ahead of us.

We left the hotel at 5am in the morning because some animals are more easy to spot during daybreak.

Sri Lankan Leopards

We watched the sunrise on the way to the park and we reached our destination at 6am. The first hour in the park was spent driving frantically in circles. We spotted quite a lot of animals, but our driver clearly had other things on his mind. Every so many minutes he would receive a call and race off again. At 7am we found out why. He was looking for the Sri Lankan leopards. The most elusive animals in the park. If you spot them you’re lucky and at 7am we were the ones who were lucky.

There were at least five trucks standing in front of us and our driver told us that leopards were spotted in the bushes. At this point we sighed, because with so many trucks in the area we didn’t think we would be lucky enough to see them. Then our driver started backing up and none of the other cars followed suit. We thought the driver also saw the hopelessness of the situation and was heading off. Instead he told us that he saw the leopards and they would cross the road behind us. He couldn’t have been more right. One by one we saw three leopards edging their way out of the bushes and onto the road. We were last to join the pack of trucks and we had front row seats.

There are two things which made this whole experience even more special. Firstly, it was a family of leopards (mommy, daddy and baby). Secondly, they didn’t just cross the road. They stopped and lay down to relax on the road a bit. Even better, they were facing us. I panicked slightly with the added pressure of taking good pictures, because here comes Dominique with her new DSLR camera and zoom lens and without any experience on how to take semi-manual or manual pictures. That’s why I took around a 100 pictures; not all of them worked out but I have at least a few that are perfect. It was such a special moment to come face-to-face with a critically endangered species whose population is in rapid decline due to poaching for trade.

The Sri Lankan Government is working hard to ensure that the conservation methods are effective. During our drive, we met a Sri Lankan minister who had been driving around the park for three days looking for the baby. I handed over my awesome new camera with awesome zoom lens so that he could see the baby with his own eyes.

Other Animals

From 7:30am until the late breakfast/early lunch, we drove around the park to spot other animals. The below summary and photos are only a fraction of the animals we saw.

Cows – most of them from local farmers. I think they wander into the park so that they can be admired by tourists too.

Water buffaloes – in the water, score!

Birds, it shows how good of a spotter the driver is when he can see tiny birds is huge bushes.

Crocodiles

Monkeys

Boars

The national bird of Sri Lanka, a junglefowl. If he would’ve told me it’s a rooster, I would’ve also believed him.

Mongoose

Lizard

Spotted deer, who didn’t want to be left out of the road crossing parade.

One elephant. Unfortunately, we didn’t find more. The driver really tried, but the elephants didn’t want to come out to play. My impression from Addo Elephant Park was that elephants are easy to spot. I underestimated how difficult it actually is. Even though elephants are large, the National Parks where they live are usually large too. The added benefit of finding this one particular elephant was the scenery. It was playing in a lake filled with water flowers.

Breakfast

We had our aforementioned breakfast/lunch near a beach which was devastatingly hit by the 2004 tsunami . All the bungalows were swept away and today only the foundations remain. Nowadays, there are no more bungalows near the beach in the National Park. Even though human casualties were high, all the animals survived due to their instinct to move inland before the tsunami struck.

After breakfast I napped a bit while the driver was driving around in circles to look for elephants. All we found however were rocks in the distance that resembled elephants.

At 11:30am we left the park and drove back to Tissa.

Conclusion

Yala National Park is a great place for a safari. I would heartily recommend to book a tour from your hotel (if you’re staying in My Village you will not be disappointed). The area we drove around in wasn’t very large – the park is but I suspect that a large area is protected. There is a huge amount of animals though. And did I mention how beautiful the landscape is?

That having been said, if we wouldn’t have seen the leopards I don’t think I would’ve thought the park is very special compared to other safari parks. The animals that roam around there are similar to the ones in other parks and as opposed to African safaris the animals are all quite small. I cannot unsee the leopards though so I’m still buzzing with excitement over this National Park and I would recommend it to anyone. I already described both Tissa (where we stayed before the safari) and Kirinda (where we stayed after the safari) in the previous post, so the next post will be dedicated to the destination after Kirinda, namely Ella and the hike to Ella Rock.

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