Yearning for Yala

Searching for leopards and nibbling wild sage in Sri Lanka's Yala National Park

- HANNAH BRANDLER

Walking in single file, voices low, we follow our ranger's lead and clamber through the grasslands, taking care not to become tangled in the twigs underfoot. Sajith Withanage has an Indiana Joneslike persona and, armed with a trusty wooden cane and heightened senses, plots our route through the Yala bush.

A deer's distress cry cuts through the air - echoed by a troop of monkeys sounding the alarm. Withanage follows the noise and later detects the scent of a fresh carcass in our midst.

It's the calling card of the jungle's most elusive resident and the top of Sri Lanka's food chain. Yala has one of the highest leopard densities in the world, largely owing to the lack of other predators (there aren't any tigers) and copious amounts of prey. On this occasion, we had missed the spotted creature by just a few minutes.

Readers might be more familiar with safari destinations on the African continent, but Sri Lanka's south-eastern destination of Yala is a worthy alternative. Bounded by a choppy stretch of the Indian Ocean, Yala is home to 130,000 hectares of national park land, where you can find more than 44 species of mammal and 215 bird species.

Expect monkeys playing on branches, water buffaloes mingling in waterholes, and flamingos parading their graceful postures. We spied elephants grazing on vegetation with their large, wrinkled trunks and spotted deer prancing through marshes, while the murky swamps concealed crocodiles.

Yala is the most visited national park in the country, and busiest during the dry season from February to July. The park is divided into five blocks, three of which are open to the public. Avoid congested Block 1 (more Homo sapiens than wildlife to spot) and head to the smaller 6,656-hectare Block 5, which is also blessed with breathtaking scenery of lush forest and contorted trees sprouting from the Weheragala Reservoir and its ancient ruins.