Greetings From the Future: Sri Lanka 3, Sinharaja

It will be impossible to do justice to our day at the Sinharaja Forest Reserve either in words or pictures. Entering into the forest was to enter into a living breathing dying muddy wet sweet growing and decomposing body that enveloped us on all sides. It was overwhelming, becoming a part of this forest that existed long before us and will continue long after us. And then, in the midst of this being overwhelmed, we would round a corner and enter a clearing or reach a vista that provided a view of all that we were a part of, catching a glimpse of the vastness, only to continue on to dive back into the sea of green. Rather than try to capture all of this, I will simply circle around the topic for a bit, add some photos, and leave the rest to your imaginations.

Our half-day trek in Sinharaja began the day before, on the long drive in. I will say it again because I can’t say it enough, Sri Lanka was and is stunningly beautiful, and so the drive to Sinharaja was amazing. Two things we learned along the way: first, there are two types of coconut in Sri Lanka, green and king coconuts. The green coconuts are used for cooking and producing coconut milk, while the king coconuts are used for juice drinking. Second, rubber harvesting is really interesting. Rubber trees were imported into Ceylon in 1876 by the British, and the production of rubber has since become a staple of Sri Lanka’s economy. Rubber trees can be harvested 6-7 years after being planted, and produce rubber for about 35 years. When the trees are ready, a small incision is made into the bark, and a diagonal strip of bark is removed from the tree. The latex sap then slowly oozes out of the exposed tree, and a coconut shell is attached to the tree right below the exposure to collect the latex. When the first exposure dries up, a new incision is made a bit further up the tree; over the course of years, the harvesting slowly moves up and down the tree so that when trees are done producing sap, they look like candy canes, striped top to bottom. Plastic covers are tied around the exposed tree as rain water will dilute and ruin the latex.

Rubber tree plantation

After the six hour drive, filled with education, white knuckle driving, beautiful scenery, and a final crazy driveway, we arrived at the hotel early evening. Our hotel sat atop a small hill, and was surrounded by a tea plantation on two sides, and open land on the other two sides. Although the pictures will help with corrections, “hotel” is probably not the right word; it might be better to call it a pool with a patio/dining room, and a row of decks with bedrooms attached.

Our home for the night!

The neighborhood

A lovely little nook

Two lovers on the outer wall

The pool, with the top of the dining patio at left-center

Yes, very very nice!

Our room

Our deck

Indoor/outdoor bathroom

A cozy room for three

Yep, that's the pool

Some more of the neighborhood

One more of the neighborhood

Waiting to check in

The food was as amazing as the views. OK, I will admit, I am not as enamored with Sri Lankan food as I am with India food. To my tastes, Sri Lankan curries are a bit thin. But it was all fresh cooked just for us (did I mention we were the only three people at the hotel?), and what it lacked in depth was made up for in breadth.

Lion - the Sri Lankan beer

All for me!!

The remains of a great meal

Light lunch

So after a long drive, this was our evening: a few photos, a dip in the pool, a great dinner, and a cozy night.

The morning of our rain forest trek started early, with a 5am wake-up call for 5:45 “coffee” and a 6 o’clock departure. Tea is so abundant in Sri Lanka that even coffee tastes like tea, but it was still a great way to wake up. Well, almost great: there was also Cliff’s announcement that “my stomach isn’t doing so great;” but other than that, a great start to the day. We gathered our prepared breakfasts (which included specially made rice rotis just for Andi!!) and headed to the forest reserve.

As we’ve shared, the drive in was amazing, and the half-day hike was awe-some. I can’t come close to describing it, so this will mostly end as a picture dump. But, to prepare for that, a few facts, a few bulleted stories, and then the pictures.

The Sinharja forest was declared and protected as a forest reserve in 1875.
The Sinharaja Forest Reserve has been designated a Biosphere Reserve (1978) and a World Heritage Site (1988) by UNESCO.
It is small but dense; only 21km from east to west and 7km wide north to south at its widest, with a vegetation density of 240,000 individual plants and trees per hectare.
Most of the forest is secondary, but there are patches of primary forest remaining.
The wildlife is really just too much to list; let’s just say that there are a lot of creepy crawlers, flyers and big cats, and they are everywhere.

And now, the start of three stories:

Our trek started off with our donning of “leech socks.” Not only were they amazingly attractive and really good at capturing heat and humidity, they did actually work in keeping the leeches out.
So yes, Cliff ate something not so good the day before and left traces of himself all over the forest reserve.
Rain forest spiders and butterflies are massive!!!