On his bucket list, Jon had "Go on a safari." So when we found out that we could go on a safari in Sri Lanka, we were all over that! We went on two of them, and they were both awesome.
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| Safari Number 1 |
The first safari was more relaxed. We could get out of the Jeep and walk around. This safari had a ton of animals... and we gave each of them a name. And, Jon's camera does great zoom pictures, so all the animal pictures are his.
On the way to the hotel after the safari, we saw this little guy in the road, so our driver stopped, and I got to play animal rescue.
A few days later we were supposed to go to an elephant orphanage, but couldn't, for some reason. So Presanne knew of another safari and elephant place that we could go to. It was a highlight of my trip.
At this safari, we had an open air Jeep, could stand and let the wind blow in our faces. Had a driver who knew that we liked crazy, so he blew through the edge of the lake, sped around the curves in the woods, and got us as close as he could to the charging elephant.
While the other safari was a leisurely drive through the woods, this one was like Jurassic Park (which we sang for quite a while). We rode from watering hole to watering hole looking for the pack of elephants we had been promised.
We saw one lonely elephant at the first place, and tried not to be too disappointed.
At other lakes we saw a flock of birds fly away, just like they do in the Animal Planet clips and waterbuffalo chillin in the water.
After five or six lakes, I was not hopeful that we would find the elephants, but we popped out of the woods and headed towards another lake, and there were the sixty or so elephants at the edge of the water. So surreal.
As we headed back towards the entrance to the park, mourning the fact we had to finish our safari, we saw a small family of elephants crossing the path, so our driver pulled just near enough not to scare the elephants. Another drive was not that smart, and the papa elephant turned and charged. In case you thought these were trained elephants.. you were wrong.
As we drove through the brush after the elephant charging, we lived a video game. We leaned back and forth on each other, hit our elbows on the bars, and tried to avoid the branches coming towards our heads as the driver flew down the path, leaving clouds of dust behind us.
A special thanks to Jon and Janna and Lauren for their fantastic photo skills on this trip. It would not be as well photographed without them.
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