Weydon Sri Lanka Day 8-9

Day 8

Instead of an nice Easter Sunday lie-in, we all woke up at 5am and promptly began to pack away our tents, ready to spend a night on the beautiful Sri Lankan coast. Once the bus was packed full of camping equipment, clothes and other miscellaneous stuff we probably didn’t need. We made our way across the Bandala wetland’s to admire local wildlife, particularly Buffalo herds, to reach one of the higher view point buildings. From here we moved on to a rural part of the country to see paddy fields and listen to a talk on rice farming, which was given to us by a friend of the Janoda Foundation, Athulla, who visits other farms to help raise awareness of organic farming (and in his spare time is our wonderful chef!). Then after a brief stop at the house of Dan’s buddy (Rasan), where we stuffed our faces with chocolate cake- we headed straight for the beach! Finally, after struggling to put up 17 tents on a red ants’ nest, all of us made it into the very cooling sea, and messed around in the enormous swell! Dinner was an exotic fish barbecue, which filled us up ready for a night under the bright stars.

Day 9

Following a night where a light drizzle on the beach at 2.30am, turned into a torrential down pour which forced us to move to an undercover location- we got up looking fantastic and feeling so refreshed, at 4.30am, in order to repack our tents and beds again. Although it was all worth it when we piled onto two open sided Jeeps and made our way to Yala National park to go on safari! Luck was on our side today, as during the 3 hour trip, we saw buffalo, wild boar/pig (Pumba), monkey, crocodile, peacocks, elephant, mongoose, deer and A LEOPARD, TWICE. The first time we found a leopard, she was hidden in a tree and barely visible; however, after cueing behind many other Jeeps, we finally got to a good spot to watch from- at which point she jumped out of the tree, and proceeded to play with broken branches on the ground; then slink off back into the tree line. The second time we sighted one was brief, but still exciting, as she ran out to cross the road right in front of us! The next part of the day involved visiting Izzy’s Buddy, Haruni’s house and finally the house of the one of the teachers, Chathuri. The amazing generosity and hospitality of our Sri Lankan friends is inspiring and keeps our tummies full! Back at the centre we set up our tents yet again and are now ready for a good night sleep.