Sri Lanka - beautiful and wild. An elephant encounter you'll never forget

During their travels, elephants usually do not ignore garbage, although their main diet is grass, which they consume up to 200 kg per day. There are 26 national parks in Sri Lanka where other animals live, but elephants are undoubtedly the biggest attraction.

Our adventure began in the ideal season - the dry season, when elephants gather in large numbers. And there were plenty of them! Dozens to hundreds of elephants were grazing carelessly on the vast grasslands, amongst which were a number of baby elephants wandering around their parents, unskilled. The little ones were so charming that one almost forgot that their parents could flip a Jeep on its back like it was a toy.

There were just enough tourists - a few jeeps scattered around the savannah. At the most attractive spots, Jeeps and visitors gathered, but our experienced driver always moved over a little, so the views were stunning. Everything was going smoothly until one elephant decided it didn't like our Jeep and ran towards us. Our guide had nerves of steel and with his shouting and banging on the hood, he scared the elephant away. He stopped within a metre of us. Shame, it could have been an exciting experience. Elephants are said to sometimes cause damage to cars which are then unable to drive, but our guide said nothing about human casualties.

We learned a lot of fascinating information about elephants - for example, they have no natural predator (which seemed very likely after that scene), they can smell water from miles away, they supposedly remember people's faces, they sleep standing up, they cool themselves with their ears, and they die when they lose their teeth - around the age of 60, while domesticated individuals live longer.

The most striking figure of the day was not the elephant, but our driver. As soon as we left the park, he pulled over, pulled out a paper with notes from his pocket, and began correcting mistakes the guide had made and adding information he hadn't mentioned at all. It was sort of an unplanned "part two of the safari" - this time focused on education.

Overall impression? The experience was amazing, but 3,5 hours is enough. After that much time, one would welcome a shower, a beer - and maybe a little more distance from all the animals with trunks.