South Coast Days Around Galle

An image to represent the speed of uploading photos in Sri Lanka.

The amazing photographer hard at work in Kotawa Forest. (Image taken by lovely assistant, not to be reproduced or used without permission.)

What was he shooting? Jesus Lizard! Also discovered by eagle eye lovely assistant.

When I say "lovely" assistant, I am NOT referring to looks. While the Smartwool socks are amazing, they do not help with the fashion in this case. However, even with such precaution, we were stopping every few feet and squirming as we flicked the creeping leaches off of our shoes. Avner had one in his sock at the end of our jungle hike which he had to pull off - lots of blood. Luckily, I escaped unscathed, or I surely would have fainted. I do remember having leaches once before. My Auntie Helen had a wonderful home in Vermont, and we would go to swim and jump in the waterfall in the woods. Is it strange to say that I think I prefer water leaches because they do not crawl about so much?

Such a slave to fashion, even at work.

My sweetheart made me this umbrella to protect me from the sun on our walk through the rice fields to the temple.

MY. FAVORITE. TYPE. OF. COASTLINE. EVER.
In the distance, you can see the Unawatuna dagoba. As we rounded the point from Unawatuna beach, still dripping with Indian Ocean water from our swim while rapidly forming new rivulets of sweat on our temples, this rocky coastline was still somehow able to bring forth a breath of New England and the windswept coasts of downeast Maine. Magic.

Eek! A million tourists. Oh wait, we are tourists, too. :)

Further east on the coast, we went to Hambantota beach. We didn't know anything about this area, but we soon found it was lovely and met many new friends...

They were all TURTLES!!
This one is an Olive Ridley and is only one day old. They will wait one week in the pools at the hatchery, and they will be released to live a long and happy life.

This guy is two years old and is a Green sea turtle. Next time you come to Sri Lanka, please visit the hatchery, they do very important work.

More dang tourists! Oh wait, this is us.

Soon after this photo was taken, we gorged ourselves at Indian Hut.
We did not consume pork, beef or liquor. We didn't care, we would have eaten rocks at this point.