![]() ![]() When the girls grow up and become mothers, they shun ivory’s gaudy red-carpet statement, hoofing it with long, lovely trunk alone. Separating boys from girls wasn’t so easy. We didn’t need rocket science to pick out Grandma … just count her wrinkles or stare into her flickering eyes and see how deep they go. Of course, we were primed for pachyderms.Ī rustle in the banyans, and an extended family materialized: a grandmother, a few mothers, several sons and daughters. Five minutes by Jeep took us into the national park.Īs Martyn readied his gargantuan camcorder, I spotted leopard tracks, water buffalo, painted stork and legions of little green bee-eaters zipping around like Tinkerbells. Martyn Colbeck of Planet Earth was filming a documentary on Udawalawe’s elephants, and we teamed up to safari. Aus-teen!” he chimed through his immaculately polished teeth. Larded with date and mango chutney, the edible volleyball was a sweet-tooth treat for poya (Buddhist full moon days). On the first morning, Darmasiri, the caretaker of the villa, plopped a hulking globe of milk rice onto my platter. I lodged with the conservationists in a sleepy sugar cane village bordering the park. One thing led to another, and I dropped into Udawalawe National Park, metaphorical guns a-blazing, to right this wrong. Through this service, I discovered that Dole had invaded Sri Lanka and was clearing the jungle-prime elephant habitat-for a banana plantation. Eventually, I signed up for an elephant love letter of sorts. Although The New York Times recently ranked Sri Lanka the #1 place to travel, I had my own reasons for wanting to go there.Įlephants aren’t a common sight along Ventura Boulevard, so as I nosed through my schoolbooks at Campbell Hall, I became infatuated by their exoticism. Otherwise known as Sri Lanka, this pear-shaped paradise drifts off the southern tip of India. For the next 80 days, I would be wanderlusting alone, washed up on a re-discovered Eden. During the next 24 hours, I would fling past Las Vegas, ride the rainbow of the aurora borealis to Northern Greenland, then plunge 60º of latitude into the seductive turquoise of the Indian Ocean. ![]() On a frigid September morning, with my parents tearing up, I shut the door behind me on 22 years in the Valley. ![]()
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