Catching up after not really having adequate connectivity.
First, my initial two pics of elephants weren't posted on Facebook but are on the website.
One correction, spellcheck offered up that there weren't any leotards on our first game drive.
Actually, glad about that as I didn't really want to see any leotards.
Leopards would have been good.but we didn't see any othe those either.
Yesterday was a full day of safari. Hot and dry and dusty and really rough riding. Nearly thrown out of our seats a couple of times. The guide politely suggested that if we were going to fall out of our seats that it would be best if we fell onto the floor of Jeep rather than out the sides onto the ground. Thank you, Einstein.
Regarding driving in the park, we did learn one interesting tidbit....at one point we came to an intersection, turned around and started backing down the road. Why? Well it was a one way road, of course. This is not the same as our one way streets where traffic must FLOW in one direction. No, in Yala National Park it apparently only means that the cars have to FACE in one direction but they are free to move any which way they choose.
Anyway, it was a long day trying to find leopards and sloth bears but mostly finding crocodiles and deer (we did find two of the three types in the park) and lots of birds. Technically, we did see two leopards. One crossed the road in between ours and 10 other jeeps. I can't get the photos off of michaels camera until we get home so you will have to trust me that we saw it take four steps. The other one was deftly spotted in a tree well off the road by someone with X-ray vision. Can you see him? Look very closely. Just to the right and just below the V in the tree. There is an inverted U in the gap between the greenery...the U has spots...that is his leg on the left and his tail on the right.
Again with us being jaded. But forgive me for not being ecstatic over that sighting when we have had many, excellent opportunities to watch whole, entire leopards for long periods of time. We were pretty disappointed.
However, the mother and baby elephant from the previous post did their best to cheer us up. We found them again right in the side of the road. Mom was pulling down a branch low enough for the baby to reach and teaching him or her to eat. I cut out a 6 second gif to try to post here. But apparently it is still too big for googles blogger site. So I will have to post it to Facebook separately. But go find it coz it will make you go, Awwwwwwww!
Finally, with one hour to go until the park closed, feeling like we had been rode hard and put away dusty (to paraphrase), the guide asked if we wanted to turn left and head to the exit and to call it a day or if we wanted to turn right and look some more. I think Michael was hoping that I would step up and take one for the team by asking to leave. But I did not. We turned right and were rewarded mightily.
Just as the guide was telling us that he was taking us to an area where we might find the very elusive sloth bear, we turned a corner and found not one but two sloth bears. Adolescent cubs rough housing right on the road. The Jeep scared them and they started to run, but just a way down the road were they started playing again. We pulled forward. They ran a ways and then started to wrestle again. This routine repeated itself several times before they ran off into the bush but even so barely off the road so we could still see them playing. Again, I managed to get some great video of the playful pair. There is another 6 second gif of the two of them at the end when they stopped and looked right at us before running off again.
So an adorable little elephant and two playful teddy bears saved the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment