Discover Yala West, the most visited National Park in the Sri Lanka. Its 127,786 ha of dry zone scenic beauty is split into five blocks, of which only a 14,101 ha area known as Block One is open to visitors. As your jeep carefully navigates the dusty red tracks of the park your expert nature interpreter is scouring the landscape for any mammal, reptile or bird hiding in the bushes, whose presence may only be given away by a flicker of a branch or a crack of a twig. Most excitingly, Yala West may probably have the world's highest concentration of leopards so you have a very good chance of spotting one.

Your journey will take you through varied vegetation that includes open grassland, riverine forests and sweeping deserted beaches while you meander freshwater lakes and rivers frequented by creepy crocodiles and birds. The scrubland is scenically broken up by many prominent rocky outcrops popular with sunbathing leopards including the most famous, Elephant Rock. These diverse habitats support a large number of mammals such as the elephant, leopard, sloth bear, spotted deer, mouse deer, sambhur deer and wild boar of which you my be able to see in their high numbers, and will anticipate at every twist and turn in the road.

Your guide will lead your jeep to the areas most frequented by leopards where chances of sightings are high, even more so in the evenings when they are more typically seen. A sight of the little cubs playing carelessly by the waters edge will be unforgettable before they sink back into the cover of trees. A chance meeting with a sloth bear, so hard to see since they are naturally awkward and shy, will also make for a memorable experience. Their sightings are recorded by visitors often. Smaller resident mammals include the jackal, civet, rusty spotted and fishing cats and black nape hare that may be seen scampering about the undergrowth while endemic toque macaques swing overhead in the trees.

Yala West is fantastic for birders, since over 142 species of birds have been recorded in the park. Tiny green bee-eaters happily pose for photos just inches from your jeep while birds of prey such as the White-bellied sea eagle soar loftily overhead. The lagoons are home to many migrants alongside sandpipers, herons, terns, gulls, pelicans and storks including the rare black-necked stork, the tallest bird in Sri Lanka, which may frequent the watering holes alongside majestic peacocks.a