Yala National Park

Tissa, 1:30 pm

I'm completely soaked waiting for my tuna in Chef Lady restaurant. I thought taking a walk by the lake would be nice, but it suddenly started pouring. Lucky me a safari driver who was passing by gave me a lift to the restaurant.

This morning I woke up super early again. This time not to go fishing but to go game-gazing from a Jeep in a safari to Yala. I shared the tour with a friendly young Swiss couple. I must admit it was not the same than self-driving in Namibia with my best friends. Fun enough, though.

In Yala National Park had rained all-night long so the roads were muddy and some areas flooded. The driver warned us to lower our expectations for the day. Gates open at 6am, so we got in at dawn. A ten-ish queue of Jeeps followed. The first big animal we saw was a crocodile, from a long distance. Must say that after swimming with some of them in Darwin the experience here was 'meh'. And then... "Lucky! Lucky!" We stared to a big sloath bear less than 10 meters away. Usually this rare animal is super shy, even the drivers were surprised. We kept on driving to see some elephants, buffalos, spotted deer... and finally... YES! The leopard! Such a beautiful individual. We saw him in the bushes and climbing up a tree, but soon after he disappeared. Unlike lions in Namibia this big cat is super elusive. But after a while we got to see a second one! All in all we spent around 6 hours driving through Yala, chasing some other animals and enjoying the views.Read more