SRI LANKA: MINNERIYA NATIONAL PARK

Our perceptive guide Sanjay picked up on the fact that I have a thing for elephants and quickly arranged an extemporaneous trip to Minneriya National Park, the best place in Sri Lanka to see elephants. In fact, it is supposed to be the largest known gathering place of Asian elephants in the world.

Late afternoon is a good time to see elephants in the park because they come to the lake to drink. Apparently we weren't the only ones who wanted to watch the elephants imbibe. Luckily, a limited number of vehicles is allowed in the park. Unluckily, many of them were in front of us:

There were things to look at while we waited for the gates to open, such as this tree with really long pods--too long to be vanilla beans, but I'm not sure what else they would be:

I like this termite mound, the Frank Gehry version as compared to the ones we saw in southern Africa:

Then there was this fun sign. First of all, don't you love their writing? Everything is based on a circle. I like the advice "Do Not Fire" (you would expect a gun in the picture), "Do Not Shout" with the trumpet, and "Do Not Alight the Vehicle," something they are very, very, VERY strict about:

We drove down a bumpy road that ran through the forest for about half an hour before emerging into a large, open, grassy plain. In the distance we could see twenty or thirty elephants grazing on the lush grass, but we were on the wrong side of the water to get closer. Sanjay assured us that they would be moving to the lake as the day waned, and that was where we headed.  A compensatory flock of painted storks gave us something to look at that was a little closer:

(Sorry about that big black spot. I must have had a bug on the lens.)

 We kept driving along the stream, enjoying the beautiful scenery and birds:

Eventually we arrived at a large lake. As it is the focal point of the park, we assumed it is a natural feature, but it turns out it was created by King Mahasena in the 4th century. It covers 11 square miles, and during the height of the dry season, animals congregate at the banks: 

There must have been at least 100 cattle sitting in the water:

And then, just as Sanjay had predicted, we began to see elephants emerge from the forest:

They came out in groups . . .

. . . and one by one:

They made their way to the water:

We watched for at least an hour, occasionally moving around or shifting for a better view or to see different groups.

They came in every size:

There were several babies among the herd. Sanjay said this little one was about two weeks old, if that:

Mark Shand, who founded a conservation group called Elephant Family (and who was the brother of Camilla, wife of Prince Charles), said, "People are so difficult. Give me an elephant any day."

Herds, also called "parades," average 12-20 elephants:

Sri Lankan elephants have the darkest skin of all the elephant subspecies:

According to the World Wildlife Federation, the Sri Lanka elephant is protected by law and killing one carries the death penalty. Hopefully, this one will keep his or her tusks. (Female Asian elephants occasionally have short tusks.)

By the way, we saw very few elephants with tusks, what Sanjay called "tuskers." Only 2 - 3% of Sri Lanka elephants grow tusks.

All together, there are about 6,000 elephants in Sri Lanka today, down from 14,000 at the beginning of the 19th century, but up from fewer than 2,000 in 1969. Sanjay counted the ones we saw in Minneriya Park and got 130 or 131. We had seen four elephants earlier in the day in our travels, so 134 or 135 elephants, by far the most we had ever seen in a single day.

Do you think this is a lot of elephant pictures? You should see the 1,000 I didn't include:

I mean, how do you choose when you have pictures like this one of a group circling protectively around a mama and baby?

Well, time to head back so we could be out of the park by closing time. On our way, we saw this ginormous land monitor:

This photo is a bit out of focus, but I think you can see how long his tongue is:

We had to cross a muddy river to get back to the gate, and our first four or five attempts at getting up the slippery bank on the far side were not successful. Our driver finally got out, waded across, talked to a few other drivers, and figured out a way to get up the bank. Darn. I thought we might get to sleep with the elephants!

Heading back into the forest, we came across one last, lone elephant walking towards us on the road. It was our first time playing chicken with an elephant.

Our driver stopped a respectable distance away, and for a while, the elephant kept coming towards us, but at the last minute, he/she veered off into the vegetation.

We made one last stop on our way to our hotel at what Sanjay called an arboretum, but which to us was a small nature preserve. It is know for its loris population. 

Its what???

A loris is a very small nocturnal primate with very large eyes. They are a disappearing species and can only be seen at night. 

Photo from here

We were given flashlights covered in red cellophane and set out on a brisk walk through the forest with a young naturalist. The flashlight barely lit the ground at our feet. Our guide and his friend were up ahead, trying to find a loris for us, calling to us in overly excited whispers, "Come! Come! Hurry! Hurry!" but we were always too late. Eventually we did have two very brief sightings of a small creature high up in the tree, but meanwhile I was being eating alive by mosquitoes and was so exhausted that I could barely put one foot in front of another. It was such a relief to call it quits and head back to the car.

We had been up before the crack of dawn, climbed to the top of Sigiriya Rock, wandered through Polonnaruwa, and bounced around on a two-hour safari before we got to the arboretum and took a nighttime walk/run through the forest.

I mark this as the single most exhausting day of travel we have ever had anywhere. It was loads of fun, but I was more than ready for bed.