Happy New Year!

Welcome 2018! Who would have thought that we would be in Sri Lanka a year ago? Not me. Today was our "P-day" so we decided to go sight seeing.

First place we stopped was a train museum.

Next we visited an elephant orphanage. We are here with our driver Shantha.

The place is called Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage.

You can get pretty close to these elephants. They start out with people who want to pay to feed them.

Pinnawala has the largest herd of captive elephants in the world.

In 2011, there were 88 elephants, including 39 males and 49 females from 3 generations, living in Pinnawala.

After feeding they herd the elephants down to the river for a bath.

This elephant really liked the water and having someone scrub his back. There were a few tourists who paid to help scrub the elephants back.

The orphanage was founded to care and protect the many orphaned unweaned wild elephants found wandering in and near the forests of Sri Lanka. It was established in 1975 by the Sri Lanka Department of Wildlife Conservation.

The orphanage was established to feed, nurse and house young elephants abandoned by their mothers.

Their noses get pretty snotty.

Each adult animal is given around 550 pounds of food per day.

After leaving the elephant orphanage we saw this couple with their pet porcupines.

These were only 3 out of the 10 that they have.

I really didn't want to get too close.

A hole in a rock that we drove through. 

A nice relaxing day seeing the wonders of this beautiful island!