A long distance trunk call

We hit the road today and travel northeast from Colombo some 148 kilometres to our new tour home for the next week. En route to our destination we confront a myriad of vehicles all incessantly blasting their horns, as transportation vessels ranging from enormous eighteen wheeler trucks to tuk tuks fearlessly jostle for pole position. The road slog will last some five hours and although progress is slow it is not for the faint hearted. It seems any gap will do as reckless drivers constantly risk a serious panel beating with Kimi Raikkonen style white-knuckled precision in an endeavour to gain mere yards.

Dambulla is our target and that is the venue for the first three one-dayers between Sri Lanka and Pakistan. It is a vast rock mass area that is rich in natural resources and it teems with wildlife thankful for the dense forest vegetation.

A welcome halfway break from the cacophony of noise and the ever potential driver carnage is always a visit to the world famous Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage. Sri Lanka has a population of some 4500 wild elephants but such is their often fragile plight in natural existance, additional care is essential.

Wild elephants remarkably live in female herds only, along with their juveniles. The males, upon maturity, leave the sanctuary of the herd and venture out either in solitude or with other males. This natural separating behaviour serves an important purpose as it prohibits inbreeding within the herd that typically numbers between 12 to 25 beasts. Wild elephants only breed about once every four years and the lifespan of a healthy elephant in its natural habitat ranges generally from 65 to 70 years.

However it is not all beer and skittles for these majestic animals as the conflict between elephants and humans has sadly resulted in many deaths over the decades and that has dented their once burgeoning population. Obviously once females are sacrificed or die due to other causes their babies are abruptly orphaned. This concern prompted the Sri Lankan government to establish the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage in 1975 to care for these magnificent, instantly abandoned creatures.

The orphanage which is run by the National Zoo and spans some 25 acres began in those early days with just 5 baby elephants. It has now expanded to accommodate 88 hand reared elephants. Such is the interaction and outright dependence on humans these animals can never be released into the wild as their natural instincts have been blunted over the years.

Of these numbers some 50 elephants have now been born at Pinnewela and one baby is from a third generation of housed orphans.

This is another remarkable success story of the now conflict free island they aptly call Small Miracle.