How to time Yala and Udawalawe
Two parks, two jobs. Elephants in the open at Udawalawe, a leopard chance at Yala, and no safari on the morning you leave the hills.
Udawalawe and Yala are not two attempts at the same morning. Udawalawe is open country and the reason to go is elephants. Yala is the busier park, and the reason people tolerate the other jeeps is the chance of a leopard. Neither park owes you the animal you came for. The jeep, the tickets and a guide who knows the tracks are the part we can actually sell.
The half day that works is early morning or late afternoon. A drive that starts after a long transfer from Ella or from the coast burns the cool hours in the car. That is why the published wildlife week sleeps in Ella first, then one night at Udawalawe, then one night at Yala, and only afterwards goes to Galle.
One half day in each park is what that sample includes, with dinner on the Yala night. A second Yala drive is something you ask for, not something we hide in the word safari. Tracks close for weather and for the park’s own reasons. If the morning is cancelled we say what else that day can hold. We do not pretend the animals moved to the hotel garden.
The November to April window is when we publish these samples, in step with the drier months on the south-west side of the island. It is still hot in the middle of the day. Bring the dull clothes, not the white ones, and expect dust.