Minneriya / Giritale

These are three brilliant pictures in the middle of Minneriya. A great couple of weeks during the dry season. Travelling during the dry season is a nice scene.. as towards the evening we had parket the jeeps inside the water way and waited for elephants to come to the water hole.. I couldnt keep count.. but perhaps several hundrteds would flock to the only bit of existing waters to bathe and drink! I got videos.. but unfortunately it's not worth hosting streamable low quality videos as such.. You have to see the real thing!! Any way we stayed at Deer Park for a while and then moved to Girithale rest.. which is at a much higher elevation and the view is amazing! There is a rock outside the hotel.. and only on this rock do mobile phones work! lol :) But what the hell.. you don't go on wild life excursions to hang opn the phone! This tusker was a bit of a rare sighting.. as usual seen alone doing their thang :) It's best not to get into their space and mess with them.. Landrovers or not.. they pack a powerful punch!

There are many things you can end up doing in the lake area, but what ever said and done you have to be extremely quiet. It feels a bit like you're being watched by hundreds of elephants instead of the other way around. All the while fully satisfying though!

Travelling in the night is not at all a good idea but after staying till the elephants come to the waterhole.. you realize that there is no way out! and by the time we managed to find random openings and sneak past hundreds of elephants without making much of a noise it was way past dark! There were times when just to get past the elephants without scaring them we had to get off the jeeps and push them past without starting up the engines. Now that was a sight!! This picture was taken raw, i'd love to give you the 100MB version but you'd never get to see it! lol! And trust me it's worth taking high powered lights along with you. Never ever stick your head out to manouver the lights! You never know whats around you! lol! (SERIUOSLY!!) Reminds me of the time we decided to drive to Habaran to see the elephants cross the roads! All i remember was driving there.. turning around and coming back in pitch black cos even the lights wouldnt help! I doubt it's a safe area to drive these days but its a road worth driving thru!

Next trip! Beruwela on 3rd! Lets hope there are sights worth capturing!