Wildlife Abounds
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2007
1
72
103
Trip End
Aug 31, 2008
Tholpetty,
India
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
We stayed at the Pachyderm Palace just at the entrance to the sanctuary. Far from a palace, but a perfect bucolic wilderness getaway and Vanu, the palace-keeper, was an exceptional host. We were lucky to have four other fun guests staying there...two motorcycle riding brits and two venezuelan sisters
Wayanand National Park
.We were all here hoping to spot wildlife. The first night we did a jeep tour just on the outskirts of the sanctuary. We spotted bison and red-spotted deer, which was nice but not as satisfying as the 'big game' we were hoping to see. The next morning the two of us and the sisters went on a jeep safari inside the sanctuary boundary lines. It looked promising from the beginning when we caught sight of two red mongoose within minutes of entering the park (according to the guide, lady luck was now close by our side). Next we noticed tiger prints along the road, which of course made all of hearts skip a beat from the excitement of possibly spotting one of these elusive creatures. Later, we stumbled upon a group of four elephants who made their presence known immediately by trumpeting from behind the thick foliage. This ended our morning jeep session but we still had the trek later in day.
After breakfast, signing in, and changing our clothes because light colors would be too dangerous (!), we all embarked upon a nine hour trek in the sanctuary. We were joined by two guides, one who could speak english and one who knew how to fire a gun (I chose not to talk much on the trek). Not really knowing what to expect from the trek, I think we all were gripped by excitement as we stepped off the dirt road an into the forest
Tiger print..but we saw the real thing
. It wasn't long before we heard an elephant amidst the bamboo. Our guide skillfully flanked the elephant so that we could get the best view. It was a huge tusker (an elephant with tusks who has been abandoned by others and is pissed about it). These guys are known to charge (in fact the gun is for the elephants, not the tigers as one might assume), so we kept our distance. Shortly after, we were walking down the path when this noise began to approach us at a high speed, getting louder as it grew closer but due to the thick foliage we had no idea what it was. It sped by us at blistering speed and finally showed itself crossing over the trail about 30 meters in front of us as a group of langur monkeys. Alex had a delayed reaction caused by fear and called out 'tiger!' as we watched them pass.We next found a beautiful field which look like the perfect location for spotting wildlife. As we approached the field, Martin spotted a leopard in the distance. Unfortunately, it didn't show itself again. The highlight definitely came at the most unexpected moment when we were stopped chatting in the middle of a dirt road. It was happenstance that a few of us were looking in the right direction when a tiger about 100 meters away dashed across the road and into the foliage...three strides and that was it, but it made our day. We had another encounter but this time it was in the form of a recent kill by a tiger. A small village calf found itself in the wrong place. A tiger had put it down only about an hour earlier and was probably lurking in the underbrush as we investigated the situation.
The day was long, extremely hot and because we only had four bottles of water between the six of us we were all dragging the last hour; however, I'm sure the day will surely be a highlight for all of us.
