80 DAYS NORTH POLE GUIDE FULL

Larded with date and mango chutney, the edible volleyball was a sweet-tooth treat for poya (Buddhist full moon days). On the first morning, Darmasiri, the caretaker of the villa, plopped a hulking globe of milk rice onto my platter. I lodged with the conservationists in a sleepy sugar cane village bordering the park. One thing led to another, and I dropped into Udawalawe National Park, metaphorical guns a-blazing, to right this wrong. Through this service, I discovered that Dole had invaded Sri Lanka and was clearing the jungle-prime elephant habitat-for a banana plantation. Eventually, I signed up for an elephant love letter of sorts. Although The New York Times recently ranked Sri Lanka the #1 place to travel, I had my own reasons for wanting to go there.Įlephants aren’t a common sight along Ventura Boulevard, so as I nosed through my schoolbooks at Campbell Hall, I became infatuated by their exoticism. Otherwise known as Sri Lanka, this pear-shaped paradise drifts off the southern tip of India. For the next 80 days, I would be wanderlusting alone, washed up on a re-discovered Eden. During the next 24 hours, I would fling past Las Vegas, ride the rainbow of the aurora borealis to Northern Greenland, then plunge 60º of latitude into the seductive turquoise of the Indian Ocean.

On a frigid September morning, with my parents tearing up, I shut the door behind me on 22 years in the Valley.

80 days north pole guide