Udawalawe

We took advantage of the three-day weekend to drive into the interior of Sri Lanka. Our destination: the national park in Udawalawe, a long four and a half hour drive from Colombo.

We stopped at our favorite rest stop halfway to Galle where we had breakfast. The kids Subway subs, and Elise and I shared a plate of string hoppers slathered in daal curry and coconut sambol with a fried egg on top. It was pretty phenomenal as far as roadside breakfasts go. We washed the spring hoppers down with a sweet, foamy Nescafe and were on our way. 

Our lifestyle has forced us to make several sacrifices. Not the least of which is a good cup of coffee is not always available when one wants one. You take what you can get and gradually you get used to it. The only coffee available at my office in Amman was Folgers instant coffee. This news may dismay many who are accustomed to make a daily stop at Starbucks for a $7 latte on the way to work. Like I said, you make the best of what's available, and before you know it you can't get going in the morning until you've had the cup of Folgers that pours more like something that should be flowing down volcanic landscapes, swallowing villages with thatched roofs whole, than something to drink. A proclivity for Nescafe is much the same. 

A flimsy paper cup of Nescafe squeezed between my knees, we were ready to continue on our way.

The first two hours mirrored our trips to the beaches south on the hour. This time, we drove past the exit to Weligama, all the way to the end of the divided highway in Matara. The next couple of hours would be spent on a narrow road, mostly two lanes, but not always, dodging women walking on the side of the road under brightly-colored parasols, shirtless old men on barely moving bicycles, sputtering tuk-tuks, careening buses that blast by us leading sudden force wave of wind and sound, and most disturbingly, dogs sleeping in the middle of the road. Miraculously, the dogs were never hit, nor did they even move as though they were even slightly concerned they may be hit. Not surprisingly, given how kind and gentle Sri Lankans are, it likely never occurred to either a Sri Lankan or the dogs they may be run over.

We arrived at Kottawatta Village just in time for lunch. We had to split up between two cabins.  Clementine and I in what she quickly dubbed 'Cool Cat Cabin'.  Elise and the boys in the other cabin.  When they failed to come up with a name of their own, Clementine named their cabin 'Cabin Sloth Bear' for the prospect of seeing the elusive bears on the safari the next morning.  

We actually did order the "Coatin Crapping Coconut Prawns". They were pretty good.

After lunch, we explored the camp before going for a long swim to wash away the drive.

We weren't exactly sure if the fish was being massaged or doing the massaging.

That night, after a dinner of traditional rice and curry, we watched the giant fruit bats take to the skies and fly from their diurnal resting places, on the hunt. They hung in the air, as though barely defying gravity, as though only held among the clouds by sheer will or by definition. These are bats, therefore they fly. They must or else every reference book in the world would need to be rewritten. It seemed to be the only thing keeping them in the air, because their flight was like a galloping horse. Every time they beat their leathery wings they would fly a little more, then fall barely perceptively, then fly again.

We had to rise early the next morning for the safari at 5:30. We met our jeep in the parking lot of the camp and we climbed up, soon pulling out of the camp onto the main road and driving through town to the park. 

We drove along the berm of the reservoir which afforded a 360 degree of the mist covered jungle around us.

Everyone agreed driving into the park was every bit reminiscent of driving into Jurassic Park. Right up to the giant wood log gates guarding the entrance. 

The kids were enraptured. I'd be lying if I said Elise and I weren't, as well. It wasn't just seeing the elephants up close (close enough to nearly touch them!) or bumping over the washed-out orange dirt jungle track or the sheer sense of adventure and discovery, not knowing which watering hole was home to a sleeping crocodile or which tree branch held up a giant stork, eagle hawk, or peacock on its extended sinewy bony bark finger, but also just the sounds. 

On the way back from Udawalawe, we listened to an interview with an acoustic ecologist from Seattle who had spent much of his life cataloging the sounds of the Olympic peninsula. He was careful to emphasize quiet wasn't the absence of sound as much as darkness was the absence of light, and one only perceived light by what it fell upon. and the sounds of the jungle were much like that. Layers of chirping, screeching, twittering, screaming, calling, singing of birds, frogs, and crickets. It was Tarzan if Tarzan could be an adjective. 

As amazing as the elephants were, equally impressive were the smaller creatures. Everything was familiar but also so foreign. There were dragonflies, but the dragonflies were bright red as though from Mars. There were flies but with emerald bodies that shone like gem stones. There were curious squirrels with striped bodies and tales that instead of being short and bushy were long and whip-like. We saw kingfishers and bright, impossibly verdant bee eaters. We saw species of birds that flew over head with short wings beating desperately and long tail feathers and birds that, like a burst of blinding sunshine caught your eye before starting away in a motes or receding golden brilliance. We saw egrets flying through the air like sticks or poles with slowly beating wings.  Peacocks sat stop leafless, skeletal trees, their long, long fanned tail feathers draped behind them like a train on a dress or a wig, and the birds left you wondering if what you knew about them was, in fact, correct. Weren't peacocks supposed to be flightless? And, if so, how the heck did it get that high up? 

We stopped for a moment and walked to the edge of the reservoir where we saw a herd of water buffalo bathing themselves in the shallows and water birds and storks with hot pink plumes wading along the banks in search of lunch.

Before it was all said and done, we would also see crocodiles and golden jackals, too.

After the safari, we headed back to the camp for a late breakfast, some downtime, and swimming.

That afternoon, we would head to the Elephant Transit Hospital, the place where the baby elephants were cared for, stopping for ice cream along the way.

The day ended with a thunderstorm as we ate an early dinner, thunder rumbling above as we sat in the near-dark.

"We all travel the milky way together, trees and men; but it never occurred to me until this storm-day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are travelers, in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not extensive ones, it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings--many of them not so much." From A Wind-storm in the Forests  by John Muir.

"In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive"  From In a Big Country by Big Country