Sri Lanka’s largest and oldest national park, Wilpattu, remained closed to visitors for nearly two decades due to civil conflict, and this enforced isolation has preserved it in a state of extraordinary, almost primordial wildness. Sprawling across 1,317 square kilometres of dry-zone forest in the island’s northwest, Wilpattu is centred on its defining feature: the villus – natural lakes formed in shallow depressions that fill with rainwater and attract wildlife in spectacular concentrations. Unlike the more frequented Yala, Wilpattu rewards visitors with an authentic, unhurried safari experience where you may share the park with very few other vehicles. Leopards are encountered with impressive regularity, often lounging in the cool shade of palu trees (Manilkara hexandra) or moving purposefully through the pale-trunked forest at dawn. Sloth bears, endemic to the Indian subcontinent, are frequently spotted, as are large groups of Sri Lankan elephant, the shy Indian pangolin, and the aquatic purple-faced langur.