First Impressions: Sri Lanka

I can't believe it, but we've already been in Sri Lanka for a week! The little surf town of Weligama has really captured my heart already, and I can't wait to tell you all the highs, the lows, and our overall first impressions of this beautiful country.

After a last minute change of Airbnbs and a bit of stress, we're located three minutes from the beach. One of my goals this year is to learn to surf, and we've definitely picked the right location for that. The waves are consistently perfect for absolute beginners, which is what I am! On our fourth day here, we went down to the beach and took a surf lesson - me, Mama, and Andrés! We all really liked it, and will definitely be surfing again! Best part? $13.50 a person for an hour and a half lesson!

One of the definite highlights of this country is the food. Everything is so new and different, and SPICY! Coming from Colombia where absolutely nothing is spicy, we're all really excited to have our mouthes burning after every meal. Curry is really popular here, and every restaurant offers just as many vegetarian options as not! Nicholas is loving that, of course. For local dishes, you can eat for $1.50-$5.00. If you go to my current favorite restaurant, Moochies, for the smoothie bowl, it'll run you $7.50!

Transport here is pretty crazy. The streets are small and overly crowded with motorcycles, scooters, big trucks, cars, bikes, and tuktuks. We originally tried to get everywhere on a tuktuk, but that proved to be pretty stressful. You never know who is going to try to rip you off, and we ended up paying way more than we should have a couple of times. We ended up deciding that we'd prefer to ride bikes around town and to other towns, for exercise and convenience! At first is was literally terrifying, but I got the hang of it pretty fast, and now I'm loving riding my bike around town! Each bike cost us $1.17 a day. I'd say that's well worth the price!

One of the best surprises of Sri Lanka are the people. I thought Colombians were friendly (and they are), but Sri Lankans are next level! Everybody you pass in the street smiles, waves, and says hello to you. Everybody is ready and willing to help, even though the language barrier makes that pretty hard sometimes. It's really easy to feel very welcome in this town, and it's super nice that there's still a lot of locals living here - it's not overrun by gringos yet!

For a day trip, we rode our bikes to the next town over called Mirissa. I've heard a lot about this town, and I was nervous that I was going to regret our choice to stay in Weligama. Though the beach was beautiful and there were loads more "American style" restaurants available (sometimes you just crave food from home), I was super happy to have chosen Weligama. Mirissa is filled with tourists, and I really felt like I didn't see even one local Sri Lankan there all day! Boutique hotels lined the beach, and we followed a trail of foreigners up a hill to an "insta famous" spot to take a picture (not pictured). Beautiful view, but totally not worth the icky feeling. I DEFINITELY prefer Weligama!

Something we're super lucky to have is a market every Tuesday and Friday right outside our house! This seems to be a trend with Andrés and I. The last time we went to the market, we pulled in this impressive haul for only $5.16! It's always interesting to go to a market in a new country, because you never know what you're going to find. There were so many fruits and vegetables that we had never seen before!

The weather here has been a bit touch and go from the beginning. Supposedly, we're in the dry season, but it's rained just about every other day! We were assured (by the internet) that if it did rain, it'd just be a short afternoon shower. That hasn't really been the case at all! On the days that it rains, it rains allll day, and the sky stays cloudy! That hasn't stopped us from going out and exploring - after all, we only have one month! But on the days when it's sunny, it's absolutely stunning. Perfect beach days!

Honestly, I'm a little nervous that our first country is so perfect. How are the others going to hold up?! But I'm going to take it as a sign that this year is going to be absolutely amazing, and I'm going to enjoy every single day here in Weligama!