Let’s Talk Leopards, Yala!

If you don’t read any other blog post, this is the one to read! Meadows and I had one of the most incredible weekends of our lives recently. I found a last minute deal on a fabulous hotel near Yala National Park, so we went on our own for the weekend. The entire excursion was quite the commitment – a 5+ hour drive after work on Friday.

Side note: The driving situation in Sri Lanka is certainly better than Cairo, but there are still some serious dangers. Apart from a couple of highways, the majority of Sri Lankan roads are two lanes, crowded with tuk-tuks, motorcyclists, public transport buses, construction vehicles and then personal vehicles. The tuk-tuks move too slowly, so the other vehicles must pass them on these small, winding roads. The motorcyclists make things worse by zipping around and generally getting in everyone’s way. My nerves were completely shot by the time we arrived at the hotel from seeing headlights speedily approaching us head-on as we passed cars in the darkness.

Our hotel, Jetwing Yala, made the road trip worth it! This awesome hotel has fabulous rooms, a killer pool and an amazing beach. It also boasts an unbelievable window into the animal kingdom – there are wild animals roaming the property! Even as we checked in on Friday evening, we spotted wild boars roaming in the darkness.

The amazing hotel was purely a bonus; the real reason we came was for a safari through Yala National Park. We read about the vast array of animals, but Meadows insisted we go to see the leopard (the only big cat on the island). I read countless reviews, and we settled on using Shehan Safaris. I also tried to temper Meadows’ expectations because ALL of the reviews explained that finding leopards is insanely difficult, and it’s pure luck as to whether you see one or not. Many visitors went on three day safaris in the park and never saw a leopard!

On Saturday morning, our guide picked us up at 5am for our 7-hour safari. Anyone who knows me knows that this is an ungodly hour; I’m not myself until around noon. But this morning was different: I was exhilarated for our inevitable encounters with elephants and a leopard. I knew it would happen; I was willing it to happen. We lined up with the 20-25 other safari groups eagerly awaiting our entrance to the park. We had until about noon to find a leopard.

 

 

We spent the first few hours in the park checking out some local birds, lizards, peacocks and even a hawk! The scenery was breathtaking – I couldn’t get enough of it! We encountered some larger animals, as well (but no elephants or leopards).

 

From 8 to 10am, we didn’t see too much that we hadn’t already passed: water buffalo, wild boars, deer. We did see a jackal!  And, when we scared off a pack of boars, I got this hilarious photo of the piglet running away (this one’s for you, Quarter!).

 

It’s important to understand just how this whole safari thing works at Yala. All of the guides interacted as we arrived at the park, and they were clearly all friends. When anyone sees anything important (meaning elephants or leopards), he calls the other guides and gives them the location. All of the safaris then RUSH to the site. Just after 10am, this happened. One safari spotted an elephant nearby at a watering hole. We got there in plenty of time to see him grazing in the shade! This bull was the most photogenic elephant. We were satiated …temporarily.

By 11am, I was freaking out. Only one hour left, and we had hit a drought. All of the guides were talking on their cell phones about how no one had seen any leopards. I began planning how I’d blog about how we saw a leopard, and then link to a Lisa Frank leopard (which I’m still going to do because Lisa Frank is awesome!). Then… our guide got a call that a nearby group saw what looked like a leopard crawling into a rock formation. We pulled up next to two other Jeeps where nothing was happening (but the tourists still had their arm-long camera lenses ready!). We stayed for a moment before our guide pulled off. I couldn’t believe what he was doing. We had one hour left, and he was ruining our only shot at spotting a leopard!

The guide backtracked a bit, and then we staked out a road just behind the rocks. Just when I was full-on losing my cool, we heard a noise in the trees. Meadows will say he saw it first, but a leopard was just a few meters in front of us on the side of the road. Our guide positioned us perfectly! Before we knew it, a small leopard was crossing in front of us.

Then another crossed! This one was the mother.

And another crossed (another baby leopard)!!!

I cannot begin to explain the magic of this moment. We saw THREE leopards – they crossed directly in front of us – and now they were sitting in the trees just to the right of our Jeep. The mother quickly took inventory of her cubs, then she watched us to make sure we weren’t a threat. She hissed and scowled as my camera shutter clicked. You can see that one of her cubs is waiting for her behind the tree. The photo where she is looking right at me takes my breath away. What a memory!

 

We still had 30 minutes left, and we didn’t waste a moment. When the leopards ran off, we got a call about an elephant family playing in the watering hole. In the last hour of our safari, we hit the jackpot! The elephants drank and played for the longest time. I can’t blame them – I’ve told you how hot Sri Lanka is!

We left Yala National Park feeling like we were on top of the world. (Note to self: Shehan Safaris + tour guide Dilan for the win!) We snapped a quick photo with the sign and headed back to the hotel to relax by the pool.

 

We trekked out to the beach to watch the sunset. The sunset was underwhelming (Yala is too far east for a good sunset), but we saw tons of animals! We spotted monkeys hanging out in the trees by the hotel and boars roaming near the beach.

 

As we walked back to our room, Meadows and I saw some baby pigs nursing from their mom. It was such a sweet moment, and we couldn’t believe how close this was all happening to the pool and our room. Another couple stopped to watch, as well. Before I could get out my camera, a cow came between the four of us and the nursing piggies. The cow stayed put for a while, but then it got mad that we were invading the pigs’ space. The cow came after us! Thankfully, the hotel dogs ran it off rather quickly. Who would have thought that a cow would stand guard for its boar friends?

We enjoyed an incredible dinner at the resort. It was a romantic evening under the stars, on a patio where a wild elephant walked up on the night prior!

We spent Sunday basking in the glory of our safari. We soaked up the final moments at Jetwing Yala relaxing and preparing for our 5 hour journey back to Colombo.

Some fun leopard facts:

• Sri Lankan leopards are an endangered species
• The leopards in Sri Lanka have smaller rosettes than those of Indian leopards
• Yala National Park has one of the highest leopards densities in the world