Our last safari day. Unlike our previous safari trips in India, we were boarding the jeep at a leisurely 6:45 am on our way to Ranthambhore National Park – for a final shot or two at seeing tigers. Our jeep for our Ranthambhore visits was different than the normal 5-person jeeps we’ve been used to. Instead, we used a cross between a jeep and a military half-track that sat 25 – or around 20 comfortably. We were one of several tour groups using the jeep, and one of many jeeps in the park. And, as the jeep was entirely open, our seats were wet for a good part of our morning safari.
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| James smiles as we settle into our safari jeep. |
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| A moment for bonding before heading out on our last safari day. |
Ranthambhore is a striking park. While the first safaris we took were on relatively level ground except for some exceptions, Ranthambhore’s grounds made going up and down steep grades something of a rule. We saw some new types of foliage that we were not as familiar with in India, including quite a few date palms. We also saw a fair number of ruins and ancient structures within the park. For most of its history, Ranthambhore served as a royal hunting ground for the Maharaja (literally, “king of kings,” as “Raja” means “king” in Hindi) – in fact, the owner of Ranthambhore’s grounds was none other than the Sawai Maharaja Madhosangh, a king of Maharajas during his reign. On his hunting junkets, the Sawai Maharaja would hunt tigers, as well as leopard, the sloth bear, different kinds of deer, and whatever animals were left over. Of the listed, we were lucky enough to see some deer – and, keeping our streak intact, this morning we saw a male tiger.
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| One of the many natural waterfalls in the park. |
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| You can see part of the remains of the Ranthambhore Fort - which is over 1,000 years old! |
Before we visited India, neither of us had a good appreciation for just how seriously people on safaris take safaris. But, seeing a tiger in India is serious business, and until today we didn’t know just how lucky we’ve been. In total, before today we had four safaris – two a day in our previous national parks. During each safari, we’ve had tiger sightings – and sometimes more than one during a given safari. Our streak continued this morning, as we had another extremely impressive sighting of a very large male tiger that allowed us to follow him for some distance. We saw the tiger stroll through the jungle, every inch the king of that domain. He paused near the river, and we watched him sit with rapt attention. It took us some number of seconds before realizing that there were about 5 jeeps staring at this poor tiger as he peed on the riverbank.
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| The tiger crossed the pathway right behind us! Notice the traffic jam he creates. |
Once the necessary business was finished, he performed the perfect tiger stunt for safari jeeps, which is crossing the road in front of the tourists. Then, he vanished off into the jungle, leaving behind the clicking of cameras and whirring of camcorders. The remainder of our morning was uneventful, but there were several people on our jeep who had – in their words – dreamed of seeing tigers in the wild, and were extremely excited – and vocal – about what they had just experienced. Not to mention pushy when the tiger appeared, and throughout that performance.
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| The tiger eventually decided to rest in the stream near us. |
We returned to the hotel for lunch, and after a quick walk around the nearby hotels down a dusty road, we headed back into the park for our very last safari in India. We were paired with a number of different tourists from this morning, and learned to our dismay that these tourists had been on a number of safaris and had never seen a single tiger. We hoped for the best, as well as rooted for our streak to stay intact. Alas, it was not to be. There were no visible tigers in the park this afternoon. In fact, we saw only one tiger footprint to suggest that there was any hope at all.
Instead of tiger watching, we helped pull another jeep out of the mud, and literally scraped by another as we were passing in a very constrained part of the jungle. We did get to see a number of deer, a variety of birds, and some entirely new creatures for both of us on this trip: wild crocodile (an adult and later a baby), and the majestic Indian Elk.
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| Our jeep got "up close and personal" with the neighboring jeep as we tried to go in opposing directions along the narrow path. |
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| A close-up of one of the Sambar Deer that came very close to our jeep. |
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| Tabitha made friends on the safari today, and was the only tiger we saw that afternoon! |
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| A Rufous Treepie perched on the jeep next to us. |
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| We watched a beautiful sunset in the National Park. |
And that was that! We spent around 6 hours total careening around the park, enjoying the scenery but always dreading whether the next turn in the road would bring us into conflict with another vehicle – or would be impassable due to water or road damage. Still, we enjoyed it, and thought it was a nice coda for the trip as a whole, as our last full day in India is tomorrow, and most of that day will be spent on the train back to New Delhi. We agreed that a trip back to India would not be the first we would plan – there is still much more left to see in the world that we haven’t scratched the surface on – but a wildlife trip like this was a first for both of us, and it was much more enjoyable than we had anticipated. We wrapped up our safari experience with a group dinner – instead of having our normal buffet, we each ordered off the menu, and truly enjoyed our meals before heading back to our rooms and getting a good night's sleep.
