Traveling has always been one of my favorite things to do during my spare time. Exploring the country I live in and seeing how different life is away from the big city. few weeks ago, my family and I took a road trip down to Yala. I’ve been to Yala 2 times before and loved it so I was excited to head down there again.
We left early on a thursday morning. Total time took us around 4 hours to get down there. Far cry from the early days of traveling to Yala where it would take 6 sometimes even 7 hours to get there. Being an ESS student, I wanted to see if I could apply some of my knowledge that I had gained in that class. We were staying at Wild Coast Tented Lodge. Basically fancy camping or “glamping”. The rooms were well constructed tents, kitted out with, AC and so on. The Interesting aspect of it was how hot water was provided for showers. The AC had to run at a temperature below 21 Degrees Celsius. Any excess water produced by the AC was disposed into a small bowl just outside the room where you could use that water to wash your sandy feet after walking to the room
In the afternoon, we headed into the park. To do this in your own car, you need to have a tracker with you. The tracker I got knew a lot about birds and showed me the many different types of birds that were visible throughout the park. I was eager to see how much of my ESS knowledge I could apply on this trip as the last time I visited Yala, it was during the summer break between MYP 5 and DP 1 So I hadn’t had any ESS knowledge at the time. As we entered the park, out first siting was Spotted Deer (Axis Axis). Unfortunately they were so far away so I couldn’t get a proper picture of them. I remember my ESS teacher, Mr. Lockwood, speaking about them in our lessons in the past. For day 1, majority of our sightings consisted of birds. Peacocks predominantly, along with a fair share of monkeys running along the tracks.
The following day, I got a different tracker to accompany me. On this day we saw a larger variety of animals functioning in their eco system. We came across a fair number of bulls and they made me somewhat uneasy cause my car is the most red thing in the entire park. When we came across elephants, my tracker taught me something really interesting that I did not know prior to this trip. Apparently, after living together for roughly 10-12 years, the female and male elephants separate into their own packs and begin living on their own. We came across more Spotted Deer (Axis axis) again and this time I got a much better video of them as they were crossing the road. Unfortunately the file is too large for me to upload. The highlight of this day in the park was the leopard we spotted. My tracker told me that it was likely that his name was Atlas and was 1 of 2 leopard brothers known be roam the specific area which we witnessed him in.
Looking back on this trip, I enjoyed applying my knowledge gained from being an ESS student as it allowed me to view Yala from a fairly different perspective and one of which I would never had done if I wasn’t an ESS student. I also enjoyed gaining knowledge about the wildlife in the area from my 2 different trackers and how their ecosystems functions, etc… I hope to go back to Yala again sometime soon and not only apply the knowledge I currently have, but also gained even more knowledge that I could perhaps apply in my ESS class.
LO1 – Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
LO2 – Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process