Tuna
Thursday 22 August 2013
Bang, bang, thump, rattle. What in the world was that noise? It sounded like a horse cantering across my roof. On inspection outside I heard breaking branches, leave rustling and monkey scarpering up the roof of the room across the path. So I spent the next 20 minutes watching the monkey play on the ground outside our front door.
We then had breaky and went for a walk along the beach. I didn’t realise how close we were. There is a security man whose job it is to make sure the tourists stay between the flags and don’t go for a swim. I think it is more about keeping the tourists away from the fishermen and not to annoy them.
It was dip in the pool time, it was only 10am. The water was lovely and warm. The monkeys all seemed to be all down at the pool. They came up to the steps of the pools for a drink. Rather cute. But they also sat on the pool chairs, unfortunately one of them started eating some blokes tracky derps. Really funny, but it got better when the bloke decide to move his and his family’s stuff to the other end of the pool and the monkeys followed. The monkeys seem to have a pattern for the mornings. Run, jump and swing their way from one end of the pool to the other. Only moving when Pablo the Pool Boy (all dressed in white) walks near them. This went on for at least an hour.
Getting out of the pool we chose pool chairs that face away from the pool but towards the tank/lake. I don’t want to watch tourist swim. Instead we spent a lovely two hours watching the water buffalo not move, the birds hunt for fish and a small crocodile bobbing up and down at the water’s edge occasionally thrashing when he caught a fish. Eventually it became lunch time so we made ourselves move.
We had an afternoon safari in Yala National Park booked, so we headed off around 2.30pm. There were lots of safari jeeps heading into the Park, many of them over took us and we got covered in their dust. Eventually we came to a place that was packed with over 10 jeeps and people pointing. I kept looking but I couldn’t see what they were pointing at. Eventually we were allowed to move forward and there was a leopard in a tree. I was really cool, and it didn’t seem to mind that there were jeeps full of tourists all clambering for a photo and making a huge amount to noise.
We got really lucky as we were driving down one of the many dirt tracks our driver/guide Ernest spotted a leopard in a tree. The leopards lay there for a while and then got up and climbed down the tree. Our jeep driver then drove about 40m down the road where there is a small watering hole. The theory was the leopard was coming for a drink. About 10 mins later the leopard sauntered down to the watering hole to have a drink. After the leopard had finished drinking, it walked around the watering hole towards us, our jeep driver moved the jeep about 10m forward. The leopard then came out of the bushes and walked across the road directly in front of the jeep. So close, so absolutely amazing. We were all very, very happy.
Off we headed to other parts of the Park to find more leopards or elephants or crocodiles or birds or water buffalo or deer or peacocks or wild boar. We saw so much wildlife.
Finally back to the hotel, time for a beer. Oh and a shower to get rid of all the dust we’d accumulated on our 3 hour safari.
The hotel has all cabins as its room. So you don’t have any adjoining walls with people, they are in a cabin about 20m away. This means the cabins are spread out through the trees. On the way back to the restaurant from our room, I came across a group of about 8 baby wild boar wandering across the path. Waiting a couple of seconds and then mum or dad wild boar wandered across the path.
A lovely dinner and off to sleep.
