Journal Entries : 1 | 2

Entry 1 - January 4, 2006

We left Gaul today after breakfast going to our final destination in Sri Lanka, Mount Lavinia. We stopped at a turtle sanctuary, rode a boat, and eventually arrived at Mount Lavinia.

We stopped in the middle of the morning at a place where people can ride boats. During the boat ride our group stopped at a small island where one family lived. The woman showed us the process of making cinnamon from the beginning. It was interesting because we were able to see how it was made, as well as taste it and smell the cinnamon that we are not able to see in North Carolina. Also our groups saw a girl with a monkey, and monitor lizards in their natural environment. It was a beautiful day to go out on a boat and see nature.

Another stop was at the turtle sanctuary. These people are trying to save turtles from being eaten by humans as well as being killed by other animals when they are in their eggs and also after they are born trying to make it to the sea. They do this by giving people an incentive to give them turtle eggs by giving money to the people who bring the endangered turtles to the sanctuary where they will grow safely and have a chance to survive outside of the sanctuary.

We saw many turtles that were a day old and would soon be released into the wild, which might be tonight. There were also other older turtles in the sanctuary up to four or five years old. Most of the turtles we were able to pick up and take pictures with the turtles. The baby turtles we were able to hold in our hands since they were so small and so many of them. The older turtles were bigger, but we were still able to pick them up. There were only a few turtles that were adults. The people talked about how the turtles survived the tsunami because they were in the canals in many cases. It was interesting to hear stories about what happened to the turtles during the tsunami because we rarely hear about any of the animals and how they were affected by the tsunami.

Today was an interesting day where we were able to see exciting things on our way to the final destination of our trip to Sri Lanka.