It's elephant time!

From Sigiriya, we took a safari to Minneriya National Park which was fantastic. As well as an array birds and lizards, the highlight was, of course, the herds of elephants who gather around Minneriya lake. I had no idea that the safari jeeps would be able to get so close  to the elephants themselves, so it was an incredible surprise to be watching baby elephants from only two metres away. However, the proximity did make it more difficult to think of them as wild, which of course they are, but well accustomed to human presence. This must also have some bearing on the human-elephant conflict that Sri Lankan authorities struggle with.

 

To be completely honest, and I know it's probably sacrilege or something, once you've stared at a herd of elephants grazing for half an hour it kiiind of feels like staring at a herd of grazing cattle. I think it helped that the lake landscape itself was so beautiful as there was still plenty to gawp at in between watching elephants pull up grass with their trunks. I'm sorry if I've just upset some people.

On the way we were told about an elephant called 'Earhole' due the to holes in her ears... She apparently lost her calf a couple of years ago due to an incident with a jeep. Since then, she will sometimes lose her temper and charge at the safari jeeps. Having been told this we assumed that the drivers would give her a wide berth but what actually happened was that the jeeps stayed fairly close until she inevitably lost her temper and charged. The jeep drove off and everyone was fine, except for this poor elephant who was clearly distressed and the guides seemed to find it amusing, which wasn't very nice.

We were joined on the safari by a Swiss psychologist called Fabien who works with addicts in Zurich and was staying in the room next door to us at the guesthouse. After the safari we had a few beers together- although still in bed by the 10pm curfew! So far in Sri Lanka, everyone goes to bed early and it definitely isn't the norm to stay up late drinking. Although I have a feeling that may change as we move toward the more touristic south of the island.

As well as elephants we got to see another water monitor, a chameleon, a family of grey langur, and plenty of exotic birds including wild peacocks, bee-eaters, Asian Openbill, painted stork, wooly-necked stork, lesser adjutant, black-headed ibis, pelicans, black-breasted snake eagle and cattle egret who hang around to eat the insects off the elephants.

And here are some of the elephant facts we learned:

1. Their skin is 10% of their body weight and around 1.5inches thick

2. Only Asian elephant males have ivory (as opposed to both sexes in African elephants) and even then, only around 3% develop tusks

3. You can work out the height of an elephant from the diameter of its foot - 4 x pie x the radius gives you the height in inches!