Even though the weather wasn't perfect, it wasn't raining, so it was good enough to move ahead with our boat safari. We took a 45 minute drive down to the largest lake in Sri Lanka. All lakes in Sri Lanka are man made. Every single one. These were created as irrigation systems, which were very advanced for the time in which many of them were made. They were created to help capture rain water, in which it could be stored during dry season, and then passed throughout villages and help water rice patties.
The lake that we were headed to was a lake that was famously known for elephant often found swimming in it. They would go back and forth between the main island and smaller islands for food. That's why Gal Oya's logo is a picture of an elephant in water, because more often than not they see them swimming in the lake. Unfortunately, on our way to the lake we saw how much damage and devastation the rain had caused over the last few days. They said that the flooding in the area was the worst they have had in 12 years. The majority of the houses in the Gal Oya area are made of stone, wood and natural materials, some even mud, and are simple one story structures. As we got closer to lakes and rivers you could see how much they overflowed, flooding all of the homes around them. Since there is no second story to these homes, all of the people's belongings and furniture were ruined. Yet, no one seemed to be overly stressed out about the situation. Every time we drove by a lake or river there were tons of people gathered on the side, taking pictures of how high the water levels were or swimming with friends.
I'm not going to lie, when I think of a boat safari, I think of the Jungle Cruise from Disney World. That's what I was picturing in my head. That is not what we were cruising around in. When we showed up the below motorboat was waiting for us.
There were 5 of us going out on this safari, myself and Jon, Nayshawn our naturalist, and two gentleman who worked at the boat dock and for the Gal Oya National Park. We rode around for two hours, seeing hundreds of birds, and a lot of Sri Lanka Sea Eagles, but no elephants. It was peaceful to be on the water, extremely calm as we took in our surroundings. We headed over to a small island in the middle of the lake where we had a picnic breakfast of quiche, fresh fruit and yogurt with a local honey syrup. On the island we had breakfast on there was a hive of bees, they were in the middle of migrating from one hive to another and we were told were scoping out where they would build a nest next.
On the way back to the dock we saw local fisherman, one who we stopped by to chat with. The lakes are all set up to be utilized for local fishing, people will come and drop nets in the lakes, fully equipped with concrete slabs to get it to sink and an empty soda bottle utilized as a bouey. This fisherman happened to catch an extremely large tilapia that they claimed to be just around 6 months old given the size.
Nayshawn felt guilty that we didn't get to see any elephants on our ride and recommended that in the afternoon we go out for a quick drive and see if we can see any in the grassland area from a local viewpoint. Sounds great!
Well, joke is on me I guess.
The view from the grassland he was talking about was visible from a boulder. On the side of the road. That has basically a cliff drop.
Let me set the stage for you. We drive in our jeep out the lodge and up and down a few switchbacks as we continue to climb the road higher and higher up. The jeep pulls over to the left and we get out, walking into the forest for a short distance before we are faced with a large boulder in front of us. On one side of the boulder is the forest, and on the other side is a drop to the road that we just climbed. Now getting up the boulder doesn't look like too strenuous of a climb, it's not like we need to hike for hours, but it's fairly steep. There's a branch overhanging from a close by tree that we use to pull ourselves up but Jon and I are quickly realizing no matter how much we try, we're not getting good traction to make the way up. So they recommend we climb it barefoot. I go first, for reasons unbeknownst to me, and am pulling myself up the side of the boulder while they're pushing me up from behind to give me momentum. I finally make it, crawl my way to the middle because I am not going any further and sit my butt down.
I will say, the views were pretty amazing, but I told Nayshawn if he unexpectedly makes me climb any boulders again I'm going to be pretty unhappy. His response was, "but this was an easy climb in Sri Lanka." I was not amused. Unfortunately, no elephants from this view. The search still continues!
