Willpatu National Park to Sigiriya

Yesterday we thought that the 6:00 a.m. alarm calls early. Today was 4:45 a.m. I don't think many of the groups slept well last night. Ed and I certainly didn't. Not sure why but it was compounded by two large bangs that sounded like bombs going off at 2:00 in the morning. Turns out it was probably firecrackers used to keep elephants away.

Anyway we all met up at 5:15 in the dark ready to catch our Jeeps for a morning Safari. We were in the park by 6:00 a.m. And despite the darkness it was still very warm.

We spent the best part of 5 hours driving around the park and whilst once again we didn't see elephants or leopards we did see a variety of animals including water buffalo, peacocks, monkeys, crocodiles, lizards and lots of birds.

We stopped after about 3 hours for some breakfast at the rest point that we'd been to the day before and our selection of food trying to avoid the monkeys who were very cheeky.

After leaving the rest stop it was about an hour and a half our back to the entrance and then we transferred onto our bus before going back to the camp to collect our bags.

There was then a 2-hour journey to our next hotel, about 2km outside of Sigiriya, the Oak Ray Fresh water villa. On the way about 20 minutes outside of the village we stopped at a small place for lunch prior to which the owner demonstrated making some Dahl and a spicy coconut side. The food was delicious.

20 minutes later we were at a hotel where we had a very welcome shower.

After a short time relaxing we spent an hour or so in the hotel bar area outside having a beer and playing cards. At 6pm we were back on the bus with the group for a 30 minute drive to a wildlife sanctuary in Damballa (Popham arboretum) to try to spot the grey Loris, disputed to be the world's smallest primate.

Despite it being dark it was still very humid and it took quite some concentration walking around the forest in the dark trying not to trip over tree roots and other obstacles. We were lucky and managed to spot (or at least the guide did) the grey Loris and a mouse deer.

After about an hour walking we were back at the centre where we had another meal of rice, curry, sambol and veg. Back on the bus, we arrived back at the hotel just after 9.30 and decided that it had been a long day so we'd head to the room to get ourselves sorted for the morning (a 7am departure) and an early night!Lue lisää