By Ali
March 11 Wednesday
Today was mostly a traveling day from the center of Sri
Lanka to the southern coast. We skipped morning stretching, the river bath, and
running and went straight to breakfast. Then we did some last minute packing
and got ready to leave the camp. We were all extremely melancholy to leave the
place because we had started to fall in love with it.
Next, we hopped in a
small minibus type of car that fit everyone, but was a pretty tight squeeze,
and drove off. Three, almost four, hours later, we finally arrived at the
Udawalawa National Park to see elephants and other types of wildlife. Before we
began, we went to the bathroom where Serena dropped her phone in the toilet
accidentally.
We rode in four different jeeps and it was a very bumpy and dusty
ride, but was very much worth it to see the ox (Editor’s Note: The ox are
actually Water Buffalo), around 100 species of birds, crocodile, elephant
families, and some random that nearby locals had released during the day.
Afterwards, we drove another two hours to our camping location. There was a lot
of singing on the bus ride there.
As soon as we arrived, we ate a very good
dinner. The restaurant was very luxurious and had fancy desserts and drinks. After
dinner, we settled down in our tents, while the adults got to sleep in very
nice rooms with air conditioning.
March 12 Thursday
We woke
up at 6:40 this morning and headed off for yoga at the local beach. Ms. Young
led the yoga and ensured that we were all stretched out for the upcoming whale
watching. After enjoying a light dip in the beautiful ocean, the group ate
breakfast at the restaurant. Breakfast was great with the chef serving up
delicious dishes of fried, scrambled and poached eggs. As soon as breakfast was
done, we had a few minutes to change and head off to the whale boats.
There was
a 10 minute bus journey and quite a lengthy wait for the boats to arrive, but eventually
they did and we were off and running! Boys and girls were split into separate
boats, and we both thoroughly enjoyed hanging our feet off the boat’s edge and
feeling the fantastic sea spray. After 20 minutes of surfing the waves, the
boys’ boat had learned via radio that the girls’ boat had spotted a whale
shark. We scampered over there and were
lucky to see a very photogenic creature. The whale shark was stunning, with
spots all over it enhancing its true beauty. There were underwater viewpoints
taken from numerous GoPro’s, and we hope to share the videos soon.
This
sighting filled us with true optimism and we thought that we would see a blue
whale, but unfortunately it was not to be. The waves proved to be too much for
us to handle, and the Borderlands lads sensibly called it off. (Editor’ Note:
The waves were not large at the time, however there was wind picking up which
indicated that there was a storm and larger waves coming). We were disappointed
but understood the situation, and were happy to know that we were going to a
small beach to snorkel and swim.
We got off at the beach and had a delightful
lunch, then headed off to swim and snorkel in the perfect ocean. After chilling
in the water and bonding together, we headed back to camp on a bus, then to a
turtle conservation centre. At this point, rain thundered down on us.
Fortunately, we were able to put the rain behind us by witnessing a live
hatching of many turtles. This was a great experience, and the whole group
found this really cute and interesting, especially as we gave them their first
swim. We engaged in many activities in the conservation center, including
cleaning turtles, tanks and taking part in an interesting tour of the site. At
the end of this tour, we felt lucky as most of us had seen things that we’d
never witnessed before. We then headed back to camp to shower and relax before
eating a fantastic dinner cooked for us by the Café Ceylon chefs. At this
moment, many people are playing cards and most are about to go to bed. Night!
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