Udawalawe National Park, Sri Lanka: Wild thing, I think I love you

Udawalewe National Park is a four hour crazy drive south of Hatton. It’s a 75,000 acre reserve that’s home to 400 Sri Lankan elephants, crocodiles, water buffalo, monkeys, eagles, and a lot of other animals you don’t often see.

We stayed at the Mahoora Safari Camp, which is located adjacent to the park, so our guides took us out into the park for three hours at sunrise and again three hours before sunset.

Here are a few of the photos:

Our camp was right next door to Udawalawe National Park and at night we could hear angry bull elephants trumpeting to each other across the park. Last month one bull broke down the electric fence and destroyed Mahoora’s kitchen facility.

Mom and baby elephant passed so close to the safari mobile that Rakhitha, our naturalist and guide, had to warn us not to reach out and touch them.

Look closely and you’ll see a family of monkeys hiding in that tree.

Here’s the Mahoora SafariMobile with Piyiumal, our driver, and Rakhitha, our naturalist and guide. The dirt roads took so many twists and turns that we never knew where we were, but Rockitha said that Piyiumal knows every inch of the national park.