TRAVEL & PHOTOGRAPHY CHRONICLES of ALESSANDRA & CASSIO

No bad weather for lions in the Mara

2010-11-03T00:48:00.001-02:00

I have arrived on the Mara after a quick flight from Nairobi Wilson Airport to Olkiombo airstrip. Heading to the camp we just had time to have lunch and officially meet the crew that would be part of this promising trip before we did our first game drive.

One of the first sightings we have had opportunity to photograph in this trip as soon as we have gone out for the first safari drive in the afternoon was about some of the Paradise Pride females diving their claws and teeth on a big wildebeest carcass.

The wildebeest was still fresh, so I think we missed the whole action for quite little time. The weather was not so good for photography because the rain started to fall in the afternoon and sky was still cloudy, and light was already fading fast with the night coming up, but the scene was perfect for warming up our gears and I was extreme anxious imagining what the Mara reserved for us for that first drive, so I clicked…

On the technical side, there are those who prefer to keep the coolness of the scene and keep white balance neutral to cold, while others prefer to force warm tones. I think both options produce excellent results. The dramatic appeal of this scene in particular accepts both settings, although I personally think that the best picture in this set is this one with colder aspect, I can nearly feel the fresh air and smell the earth moisture drenched by the afternoon showers – what do you think?

The lionesses had no competitors around such as hyenas or other lionesses of the pride, but this could be just a matter of time given the hour of the day. As long as we stayed there, we could calmly observe these lionesses enjoy their dinner peacefully.

What a start! How I missed that place…! These lionesses on a kill were exactly what I needed to revive the feeling of being back on that enchanting place called Maasai Mara.

More updates to come…

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

All the pictures herein are copyrighted by Alessandra Santos and Cassio Lopes. The pictures cannot be copied, reproduced or used for any other intent without express authorization of the authors. If you are interested in any picture of our portfolio shown here, please get in contact with us through the e-mails links in this page or by accessing our Facebook page.

Back to the best wildlife spot on Earth

2010-10-31T19:32:00.002-02:00

Maasai Mara is beyond comparison to any other place on Earth in terms of mammals density. Mainly during the Great Wildbeest Migration, a yearly phenomenon that floods this park in Kenya with an enormous amount of herbivores. Millions of wildebeests and hundreds of thousands zebras cross all the way from Serengeti in Tanzania up to the green lands of Maasai Mara in Kenya, which flourishes of green grass with the seasonal rains that hits this region in the first half of the year. Of course that with this movement of herbivores around, the Mara resident predators enjoy what is for them the best moment of the year, and this is what my trip to the Mara this year brings up: delightful sightings of our favorite big cats, including from frugal behavior to breathtaking action.

I will tell here some of the most exciting scenes I have ever witnessed in my past safaris in Africa and in the Mara.

Having so many excellent wildlife viewing and specially bigcat sightings, which provided so many stunning photographic opportunities, is not about being lucky, but the result of guidance of a very experienced and knowledgeable team formed by renowned professional wildlife photographers Jonathan Scott and Angie Scott, the most skilled and best wildlife specialist cameraman Warren Samuels, and a very dedicated team of genuine maasai drivers and trackers led by Jackson Looseyia of Rekero Camp, which hosted the group of 16 adventurous guests of this fantastic trip.

This brilliant week starts in the very core of Maasai Mara reserve, the region called the Mara Confluence where Mara river meets the Talek river, exactly where Rekero Camp is settled every year. We have spent almost 8 days in this nature’s paradise and along this week many scenes have been seen. I sincerely hope I can transmit you the joy and thrill of these scenes through my pictures.

Keep watching… the adventure is just beginning…

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page
All the pictures herein are copyrighted by Alessandra Santos and Cassio Lopes. The pictures cannot be copied, reproduced or used for any other intent without express authorization of the authors. If you are interested in any picture of our portfolio shown here, please get in contact with us through the e-mails links in this page or by accessing our Facebook page.

We are back...

2010-10-31T11:26:00.000-02:00

New interesting and thrilling posts to come. After almost an year of refrain we will restart writing new stories and publish pictures of our latest trips to Africa.

Get back to you soon.

Cheers!

Ranthambhore - Day 04

2009-09-15T00:18:00.000-03:00

As the end of our time in India get closer and closer we begun to grow our expectations; we have completed all 5 routes of the Ranthambhore National Park and we had already our preferences by that time, but the route assignment was not in our hands. Summit showed up on the morning bringing the Route 4 permit, we should start repeating the routes, not necessarily in the same order.

Route 4 is quite interesting, the big waterhole formed by the dam in the middle of the route, the other waterholes spread all over the area and the highpoints that provided a different angle of the region, were a plus in that Route. We have followed the main track

In the end of the track there was a gathering of some vehicles and we could see already the people taking pictures frenetically – this could mean only one thing: Tiger! Summit approached the narrow track that crossed the site where a tiger was lying near the edge of a waterhole. The whole place was very dry and the water spot looked really like a magnet for the tigers in search of a refreshing bath or for the thirsty ones.

Beautiful Male Tiger

Tiger Reflection on Waterhole

Male moving around

The tiger sub-adult was quiet and did not show any intention of getting up to drink from the waterhole – we had to be patient. Peace was frequently broken by new jeeps arriving and jostling for a good position – it seemed that we were around the main attraction of that route as the audience also included a canter (big truck converted into a safari roof-less vehicle for 20 people). However, even with that agitation of the people, the tiger did not feel disturbed at all.

Female Tiger waking up

Unexpectedly, we noticed a movement in a bush near the tiger, it was another tiger. That was incredible, 2 tigers in the same scene. Summit confirms our suspicion that they were brother or sisters; actually they were 1 male cub and one female cub. The one in the bush as the female while, the other one lying, down was her brother. The story about them was that their mother had been killed by a male tiger that was not the father of the cubs, so to defend her siblings she fought against the male tiger and lost. Now the sub-adults were completely by themselves.

Female tiger moving

The female raised his head and after, the body, she started to walk to the right where her brother was still lying down and decided to go for a drink on the edge of the waterhole. That was a scene we were so anxious for: a tiger drinking at a waterhole. The reflex of her head in the water was not so crystal clear, but it was a superb sight indeed.

Female drinking at waterhole

It doesn’t take too long for her brother to join her in the edge of the waterhole and drink together. Then we had 2 tigers drinking in that waterhole, if we thought ourselves were blessed to witness one tiger drinking at a waterhole, that scene we could not even dream of seeing.

Brother and Sister drinking water together

Both tigers were very comfortable with our presence, and continued to drink peacefully until they got satisfied and decided to go away. Despite our attempt to follow their path they soon crossed the boundaries of the Route 4 then setting the end of that great sighting.

Male is gone, Sister will take off soon

We return to the central waterhole to try check on the other tigress domains, but we could count only on a flock of painted storks and other birds as usual. The time to return to the hotel approached and we speeded up to get to the gate, the Dev Vilas swimming pool was waiting for us.

Sometime before lunch we are invited by the resident mahout of the hotel to meet Pawan Khali, the resident`s old female elephant. She is 75 years old and belongs to Mr. Singh`s family since she was acquired by Mr. Singh`s grandpa when she was around 20 years old. Unfortunately this elephant saw many tigers get shot to death in the times when tiger hunting was still legal in India and hunters rode elephants to go into the jungle in search of wild tigers. Now she is retired, but Mr. Singh is still responsible by her welfare. The mahout who takes care of her in the hotel called us to give her a bath.

Presenting Pawan Khali

Elephant Bath

One of us scrubbed a piece of rock to remove dead skin while the other used a hose to give her a good shower. Interaction with elephants is always a grateful experience despite we felt sorry about Pawan Khali have to spend her last days in that confined space in the backyard of the hotel. At least they still take care of her as they consider her part of the family.

Be happy Pawan!

After lunch we return to the park with Summit again, but this time we were not so luck again. We have been assigned to Route 2, and we could just spend the game-drive time visiting the waterholes expecting to see tigers relieving of the day heat. There were only deers, birds and crocodiles in the waterholes, including a mating couple of Sambhar Deers.

Mating Sambhar deers

Rose-ringed Parakeets Flock

In the way out to in the checkpoint, the platform in the middle of the checkpoint square was full of rose-ringed parakeets, lots of them – probably someone have thrown grains on the platform for attracting them. The scene was interesting.

In the end the day we still felt happy for having witnessed the couple of tigers in the waterhole in the Route 4 in the morning. That was really a great moment. The next game-drive would be the last one in this trip in India, but as for compensating all our lucky we had across the whole trip so far, we would see nothing at all – absolutely nothing…As if to say goodbye to us, Nature has turned its back to us and only the warmth of the air and the constant deep sounds of the forest have been reserved for our last safari in India. We were happy.

End-of-game drives in Ranthambhore

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Ranthambhore - Day 03

2009-08-18T23:13:00.000-03:00

Another sizzling morning in Ranthambhore and still a bit upset with the last day results, we tried to cheer up ourselves keeping our expectations high about our next game-drives. The 4th safari in Ranthambhore was about to start, we met again a new guide, Summit, who we should still have as our guide for some more game-drives (we will never understand the park rules to form the guide and driver teams with the guests – unless a private jeep hired since the beginning, the visitors have no clue about the game-drive organization).

As usual, we were picked up first and we went pick the other guests up in another hotel. The first good news was told by Summit – our group had been assigned to Route 3. We vibrated with this news since we had heard before that the Route 3 was the most beautiful one and the one with more chances to see tigers.

Entrance Lake

Rajbagh Lake

The Route 3 is actually the central route of the core touristic area of Ranthambhore where, in the heart of the area there is a lake called Rajbagh (literally the King`s Garden) with a small fortress in the center of an isle where the Mughal kings used to spend the Spring hunting the animals that approached the lake to drink water, including the tigers (not a thing that India can be proud of nowadays…). But despite the dark side of this lamentable heritage, the landscapes of this area of the park are breath-taking, and everywhere we looked there were birds, monkey, deer and hope of seeing a tiger was looking quite promising.

While no real tiger decided to show up, we had to warm-up with the “tiger-bird” (technically known as Rufous-treepie), and other added attractions such like the “snake-bird” (Oriental Darter), and the athletic Stork-billed Kingfisher.

Rufous-treepie

Oriental Darter

Stork-billed Kingfisher

The Route 3 area does not extends far away from the Rajbagh lake, the best way to describe it is to say it looks like a star-shaped set of routes, where the lake is the center of the star and tracks starts from the lake and loops back to it to cover the areas around it. We went onwards and backwards along those tracks visiting and revisiting fresh pug marks which insisted to appear and disappear of the track around the lake, and checking on groups of spotted-deer that looked like suspecting of birds and alarm calls coming from a dense jungle near a more isolated region on the West side of the route. Nobody had seen any tiger so far.

But suddenly, we noticed traces of dust rising on the main track towards East – that was an unmistakable sign that something really interesting was happening there. We rushed to the same direction following the dust cloud when we came across another vehicle that confirmed it was a tiger spotted behind the Rajbagh Lake.

We approached the area and a swarm of jeeps came from everywhere to try guarantee a place in the “arena”. The tiger was still walking around the right border of the road aiming to reach the waterholes in the other side towards the lake in the left.

T.28 Approaching

The spotted-deer herd that were drinking at the waterhole backed-off quickly while the stallion watched carefully the movements of the tiger approaching the waterhole releasing loud alarm calls to ensure that the tiger knew that they have already seen him.

Chital on the run

T.28 Close-up

It was a huge male tiger, T.28, not very interested in the spotted-deer, maybe because it was too hot to run. The tiger steadily continued his walk towards the lake without hesitating until he was out of sight. We tried some way to see if he was going to appear in the lake shore, but he never did it, as he probably decided to stop to rest beneath the tree before the lake shore. We had no time to wait his next moves, so we set course to the beginning of the route.

T.28 Crossing the Road

T.28 at the Waterhole

In the way out, near the waterhole we saw again the chital herd that had not yet recovered the peace after the tiger was gone. The youngest ones were still feeling not so safe and crossed the road in a sprint, which we could capture in a panning shot, and not far from we finally saw an Indian Gazelle, quite similar to the Thompson Gazelles of Africa, but not so frequent in the lowlands in India.

Indian Gazelle

T.28 Leaving the waterhole area

As we got to the end of the morning drive, we could take really nice shots of Nilgai (or Blue Bull Deer) in open fields in the beginning of the route. That was really a high quality game-drive that made us recover the thrilling sensation of the previous lucky game-drives we had before.

Nilgai Close-up

Again stopped in the rangers’ check-point the langur troops were making their usual “show” and, of course funny and odd poses.

Langurs grooming each other

Full Examination

In the second half of the day, the game-drive would be led by Ravindar, the same guide we had in our 1st safari at Ranthambhore. If spotting tiger would depend on the guide’s luck, then we were optimistic about that drive. Completing the whole set of routes of Ranthambhore we have been assigned to Route 1, the only one missing.

The extreme dry and dusty lanes looked like never-ending tracks leading us to the center of the earth because there was no wildlife and temperature was getting hotter and hotter as we advanced into the jungle. This route was even drier than Route 2.

Dusty Winding Roads of Route 1

That route was particularly empty of wildlife. We spent hours following a straight line of dry bushes and trees, without seeing anything worthy of reporting – the route was very long with no derivations or alternative tracks to break the monotony. There was absolutely no trace of tigers in that area, and despite our initial optimism had already faded after so much time of poor game, hope always lasted till the end of the safari drive.

We made a quick stop to take some pictures of a young Nilgai eating the leaves from a tree branch, it was an unusual sighting and the light was excellent as the Nilgai was near the road and we had no obstructions to view it.

Nilgai grazing from the trees

And not far from there we cried to Ravindar: Stop, stop! What is that thing walking on the forest? – the vision was not clear; the animal or whatever we saw was 150 meter away and there were many branches and tree trunks in the way. “Looks like there is more than one animal moving and they are big, what are they?” – We asked. Ravindar asks the driver to go back to find a better point of view. In a matter of seconds the revelation comes up: “Sloth Bear, yes, sloth bear! And it is a female with cubs…Incredible!” – Ravindar reveals astonished. We were indeed astonished to see a family of sloth bears that hour of the day; they have a thick black fur coat and it was incredibly hot at that part of the park.

Sloth Bear family

Sloth Bear young cubs and mother

The mother bear was eating fruits dropped on the ground while the 2 cubs played around her, and sometimes scaling her back. They were really beautiful – for sure a fantastic sighting. We spent there almost half an hour betting on the chance of the family approach the road, but they were afraid of the jeeps, then they kept a safe distance, sometimes disappearing completely behind the rocks and tree trunks.

Back to the hotel Mr. Singh was very interested in seeing our sloth bear pictures – there was already 6 months since somebody spotted a sloth bear in Ranthambhore. They are not very common in the core area as they prefer the safety of the non-touristic area and even less common to see them during the day at the summer season. Amazing.

We were pretty sure that we would leave India without seeing the Sloth Bear as we had more chances to see it back in Bandhavgarh. We were happy we were completely wrong…

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Ranthambhore - Day 02

2009-07-25T22:55:00.000-03:00

Happy with the great start of the day before, we woke up that morning with the hope to keep the luck standard that has helped us seeing tigers everyday up to that moment. We met our guide at the hotel, but he was a different guide and there was a different driver as well – in Ranthambhore there is apparently not a logic rule that may leave us attached to a fixed team of guide and driver.

After picking up the other guests at a neighbor hotel, we are informed that the permit was for Route 2 in that opportunity, one of the most western routes. This route has a different checkpoint, a busy one we should say, since there is a still active Ganesh God worship temple inside an ancient fortress. We can clearly appreciate the walls of the fort on the top of the hill settled on the borders of the cliff facing the entrance of the route.

We have learned that some people saw T.17, the same female tiger we saw on the day before, on Route 3, meaning that she went exactly to the opposite side of our route, been totally out of our track in that morning.

Peacock Display back to us

Lesser-Adjutant Stork

In a certain point of the route we stood by a small canyon where the people on a canter supposedly saw a tiger or a leopard climbing one of the sides of the canyon. Unfortunately we arrived late and we could not see any animal moving or scaling the rocks of the canyon – the sunlight didn’t help either since the rocky wall was totally on the shadow and the sun was still behind it completely obfuscating our eyes. If there was indeed a bigcat there, it didn’t matter how big the animal could be we would not be able to spot it.

In the end of the game-drive, by the gate of the check-point we profited of our pause there to check-out the park to observe and laugh with the funny performances of the gang of langur monkeys.

Langur Troop on a Banyan Tree

Apparently there was a kind of dispute between 2 gangs of langurs. They did not fight, but they used any sort of place to escape of each other, jumping on car roofs, leaping between branches of a majestic banyan-tree in the middle of the check-point square, or just climbing the walls of the buildings around the Fort entrance. The locals did not appreciate too much the monkeys messing up on the jeeps roofs, and they just tried innocently to scare them away using handkerchiefs, obviously without any success.

Man Scaring Langur Off the Car Roof

Langurs at the temple

Langur Perfect Portrait

The morning game-drive came to its end without a single tiger sighting for the first time in our journey, but we had still our afternoon game-drive, and after refreshing in the swimming pool, watching the birds in the lodge gardens, and having lunch, we took a jeep back to the park again.

Rose-ringed parakeet at the lodge gardens
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In that afternoon, the area to be explored was set to Route 5, a very dry route following the most eastern edge of core area of the park. New safari team again. The target for that game-drive was to try finding the male tiger T.5, seen in the morning game-drive by other people in that same route.

T.5 has a sister (T.6) and a brother (T.7); the three of them were frequently seen still together in the end of Route 5 where it rests the territory of their mother. The 3 sub-adults had been already expelled by the mother, but they were still around her domains and under her subtle supervision.

The Route 5 has no natural waterholes and the artificial ones are very small what turned this route less attractive, in our opinion; since there were also poor chances of seeing the local fauna around the water bodies as usually we could see along the other routes.

Along the road we took back towards the beginning of the Route 5 we asked the crew to stop the immediately the car – we saw a scene that we recall of having seen in photography books and also in Elliot’s blog where he told that he always wished to take a picture of a Langur surrounded by blossoms of the flame-of-forest tree. Inspired by his idea, as we had just spotted a couple of langurs on the top of a tree full of flame-of-forest flowers, we definitely did a stop.

Langur with flame-of-forest blossoms

The langurs were initially in the left side of the road where the sunlight was coming from, spoiling our attempts of achieving the ideal level of clarity and detail, but as they were very unquiet monkeys, they fortunately decided to change from that tree to another in the other side of the road where we could then see them with a more soft contrast in a more colorful background, despite having sometimes a branch blocking the view. Finally we could make it; we have got some frames of that fabulous ape eating picking and eating blossom by blossom until the tree had been nearly cleaned of their red flowers.

Langur eating blossoms

The joy of being with the langurs on those trees for so much time had been suddenly saddened by the fact that we should face the reality that our chances of spotting a tiger or another bigcat, such as a leopard, were absolutely exhausted. We returned to the hotel. That was the first day in our entire journey at the Indian National Parks that we could not see any tiger.

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Ranthambhore – Day 01

2009-06-26T18:36:00.000-03:00

Just after saying goodbye to all staff of Nature Heritage Resort we have been taken to the train station at Katni, where we took our sleeper train once again. We almost lost it, after having passed by a never-ending sequence of villages along the road between Bandhavgarh and Katni during the early evening hours; we have got to the train station just in time for getting in the wagon and go, and this rush had a cost, Cassio left his hat behind – most probably in the car back seat in the moment we parked in the station and took our luggage in the dark.

We passed more than 14 hours in that train, and finally arrived at Sawai Madhopur by the morning, and we have been taken to the Dev Vilas Hotel where we would spend the next 4 days to explore the Ranthambhore National Park. It was much hotter in Rajasthan than it was in Madhya Pradesh. The weather was extremely dry and we could notice differences immediately – there was that red dust everywhere and the scenery was mostly like semi-desert with dry and dry vegetation.

Typical Ranthambhore Scenery

The game-drives rules in Ranthambhore were different than in Bandhavgarh. There we had to share the jeep with guests of other hotels. The jeeps and guides did not belong to the hotel but to third-party companies hired by the Government; we were picked up by the jeep on the morning and afternoon, but it might be a different one each time – the guide/driver combination also changed, and they have a route assigned by the Forest Department before picking the guests at their hotels.

In Ranthambhore, there are 5 routes denominated by numbers from 1 to 5, being the Route 1 the one heading to the most Eastern side of the entrance while the Route 5 heads to the most western side of it – then the other 3 routes cover the East-Center, Center-Core and West-Center areas. The Route 3 is the one which covers the Core area, what is called the Heart-of-Ranthambhore where there is access to the Rajbagh Lake and it is the main area of the most famous tiger in the park: Machali, the oldest tiger in the touristic range if the park. Machali is to Ranthambhore what B2 is to Bandhavgarh.

Spoonbill

In the first afternoon, we met our first guide: Ravindar. There was a main road starting in the first park gate that crosses a kind of Buffer Zone. This road took us to a second gate passing through a small canyon – after the gate, depending on what route we got, we could take a track to the right or to the left, or continue ahead. In that afternoon, we had Route 4, and then we continued ahead until reach the corresponding ranger’s checkpoint before entering the Route 4 itself. A very dusty track surrounded by rocky hills in both sides introduced us to this new environment, very different from Bandhavgarh.

Park main road

Welcome peacock

We were still distracted assimilating the new scenery when the driver cried: Look! We immediately stopped the vehicle. There was something moving far away on the winding track ahead, but it was not close enough to distinguish what exactly animal it might be. We approached slowly and the guide then confirmed it was a tiger. That was really incredible that in the first 10 minutes of game-drive we could spot our first tiger in Ranthambhore – we were very excited with it.

The big cat was moving towards us actually, just walking calmly on the track, like a phantom not making any noise as the paw cushions smoothly touched the dusty ground. Despite the high temperature at that time, the tiger was moving around showing being plainly adapted to that tough weather. Ravindar explained that tigers would prefer to walk on the tracks indeed because the track would be cooler than going the rocks and bushes, but we indeed expected that they would be much more lethargic than they actually proved to be under such temperature.

T.17 is her name, a young but already adult tigress. In Ranthambhore the tigers do not get a name, but a number – less charming isn’t it? There are 34 tigers in the Ranthambhore core area and T.17 rules over a territory in the border of routes 4, 3 and 2, closer to the entrance. She does not have any cubs in the moment.

T.17 kept coming towards us and we backed off a couple of times along the route to give her more space. She walked to the left of the car making us think that she would go to the stream running just along the road, but then she turned to the right towards the hills and set her route away from us.

T.17 has 2 sisters, T.18 and T.19 and they are all Machali’s daughters (Machali is also known as T.16 – her official tag). T.17 had a female cub baptized of T.1, who was transferred together with T.18, her sister, to Sariska Reserve, the national park which has lost all his tigers to poaching. That is a truly sad story.

We could barely notice, but T.17 was wearing a radio collar for tracing. Ravindar said that 3 tigers use collars in Ranthambhore, and we personally guess that the collar may be necessary not for scientific research but to monitor T.17 just because her territory is on the edge of the core area, bordering the buffer zone where there are still active Hindu temples and many villagers circulating by bicycle or even by foot.

After T.17 vanished in the bushes on her way to the hills, we continued our journey into the Route 4, then feeling a big relief since we succeed spotting our tiger of the day. Along the route we saw many other animals and specially birds – and it was noticeable that the wildlife there was a bit different of Bandhavgarh. It was much easier to spot birds and frequently multiple species together.

Painted Stork

Black-headed Ibis

The Kingfisher

We came across a big waterhole in halfway to the end of the Route 4, where crocodiles were taking sunbath to raise their body temperature and chital deers browsed the grass and profited of the black drongos on their back to get rid of the parasites just like the well-known buffalos and oxpeckers symbiosis in Africa.

Crocodile Sunbath

Drongos and Chitals

Framed by the spotted deer legs

Black-winged Stilt

Next we reached an area called Lakarda where a village used to exist before being relocated to the buffer zone. Lakarda is Machali’s territory, but there was no sign of her that afternoon. We then took the track to the very end part of the Route 4, a very rocky slope making the contour of a deep and shady valley. There we spent some time trying to track a leopard that lives in a cave around there; however we followed the loud Sambhar deer alarm calls for quite some time without success. Leopards are really extremely elusive cats. I already confess that despite all promising attempts, we had no chance to see a leopard in India. Maybe on next time.

Busy waterhole

Chital Stallion

The end of the first game-drive approached and we just made half-turn and went back to the ranger’s checkpoint and headed out of the park. It was a really great start, we could see an adult female tiger and many other animals – the Ranthambhore Park is different and beautiful.

Back in the hotel, the swimming pool was waiting for our evening splash. We went all the way back to the hotel already dreaming about the next safaris…

Langur Family

Baby Langur

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Bandhavgarh – Day 05 – Part 2

2009-06-14T22:20:00.000-03:00

Raj wanted to break a record, 9 game drives, 9+ tiger sightings without interruption. We think we were not the only lucky people to see tigers every day; that week the tigers were very active at Tala Range. Deepak finally got better from his flu and wanted to join Raj and us in the last drive. That was very special: they told me we had the best team together in the same car, Raj, Deepak and Dino. Raj was excited like a child, called his wife to say that he had all his friends in the jeep, we were happy too. But he also said that the last time he did that they could find no tiger…we cannot even think about this possibility!

That afternoon, the pressure was high to find a tiger, and the best to do was to get to the last point where we were in the morning, the bamboo forest where Jhurjhura had probably passed the hottest time of the day hiding from the sun.

The possibilities were all about relying on Jhurjhura and her cubs, which had also potentially joined her after we left.

Like snipers, we set position on the road side and kept eyes on the bamboo thickets across the grass field. Moving the jeep back and forth, our crew of experts reported more or less where the tigers were hiding, but we actually could not see anything but dead bamboo leaves.

John and Digpal were there, too. This time, as there was not too much action, BBC was collecting background scenes for the documentary. The light was really good at that spot of Rajbhera. There were really good things to take picture of, with the golden sunlight hitting on them, like this old strangler tree.

We left the place a couple of times to check the vicinity for some alarms calls, but they were pretty much convinced that the Jhurjhura family was still behind the bamboos.

We were already loosing hope because the gate closing time was approaching and there was still no sign of Jhurjhura or of her cubs. Even if we would see a tiger that time, our 400-100mm lenses would give us a hard time not to blur the image. I remember seeing John Aitchison filming a beautiful sunset at Rajbhera, when finally Jhurjhura put her head out of the hide.

She got out and walked calmly through the grass towards the road. It seemed that she was still interested in the chital deers which she crossed back there in Rajbhera grassland on her way to the bamboo thickets.

She interrupted her walk a couple of times to raise the head above grass and finally she selected a man-made wall of stones on the border of the road, and rested.

Jhurjhura would not move from there by the next minutes, the thing was that the gate closing time had arrived. We were one of the last jeeps to leave the place; it was our last tiger saw in Bandhavgarh. The light was not so good anymore as the sun was already low behind some tree, then that area was totally in the shade, but still we could take a few more shots.

For the relief of Raj, Deepak and Dino, the mission had been accomplished; we saw the tiger again in our last game drive there. For the proud of the crew they beat their mark – for us it couldn’t be more perfect! For a couple coming from so far of India, for the first time, seeing the tiger once would be already a blessing, seeing so many in all excursions into the park was simply unbelievable!

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Bandhavgarh – Day 05 – Part 1

2009-06-13T01:42:00.000-03:00

Last day in Bandhavgarh. We were feeling so happy to have been awarded with some many tiger sightings that we didn’t want to leave. We actually could never imagine that we could be so blessed with that luck – we have almost seen each one of the 12 tigers that live in the Tala Range and plus, the New Male who does not belong (yet) to that area.

We had still 2 game drives to happen, but felt like we could not live anymore without that routine – safari game drives are so exciting that everyone gets easily addicted to them – the process of meeting the crew early in the morning and get to the gate, the wind blowing on our faces, the searching for tracks and sounds, screening the sand for paw prints, the thrill on each encounter before the tiger materializes just in front of our eyes, the forest atmosphere, the hot colors and smooth light through the trees towards everywhere we look while the jeep advances into the jungle, the tiger eyes meeting ours through the lenses of our cameras…

It is a never-ending collection of memories engraved in our souls that we will never forget. In the last morning drive in Bandhavgarh we just wanted to keep the rhythm, at least see any tiger, could it be a same one, could it be far away, male, female, cub – the important was to close this part of the trip with one more tiger. It would be so sad if we could not see a tiger in our last they there…

Raj took us straight to Rajbhera Lake, the lake formed by the dam in the north of Tala Range, where we had already been many times trying to spot the Jhurjhura female and her cubs.

Jhurjhura seemed to be hiding from us, we always listened to other people having been able to see her in the past days, but we had only a quick glimpse of one of her cubs running across the road. But this should be our last chance to meet her, so she had gave us a break from the hide-and-seek game: as soon as we arrived at Rajbhera area, Raj found out that she was just up on the hill preparing to cross the dam wall.

In reality, we could not be sure if she would cross the lake or if she would come downhill towards the other side, so we alternated with John Aitchinson and Digpal’s to each one of us keep in each side of the hill and notify the movements of Jhurjhura.

More jeeps arrived in the meantime and after quite some time Jhurjhura decided to cross to the other side towards the lake. We rush to the lake just around the hill and when we arrived she had already made her way over the wall of the dam, but she was still waiting on the top of some rocks just in front, along the lake shore. BBC was already filming the scene, actually one of the most beautiful scenes we could see so far, because the whole scenery was outstanding and the tones were superb.

Jhurjhura started the descent path towards the water and the sequence of her moves triggers the excitement in everyone. The crowd got delighted with the scene just happening in front of us.

Jhurjhura hesitated to dive but quickly got into water and crossed to the other border of the half-dry lake always accompanied by her own reflex in the Rajbhera lake waters.

She briefly stopped after the crossing to watch potential preys not far from there, but that time of the day it was probably too hot for a hunt – we never know!

She vanished in the high grass field for a while, and then we just moved to where Dino and Raj expected her to reappear on the road side. Magically she popped up right ahead the vehicle as expected and walked to the bamboo thickets on the other side looking for a cover, where she would probably settle for the next hours until temperature would drop to more suitable levels for hunting.

That is exactly what she did, and we left right there just after she disappeared in the middle of the bamboos.

We drove back to the main gate with that feeling of having one more mission accomplished, and as we made the turn on Chakradhara Meadow and took the main road through Siddh Baba grass land we met some jeeps parked by the road. That was the same point where we did the Tiger Show 2 days before. There was a Tiger Show still going on. Despite the hours, it seems that there is no more people left to go, so raj asked us if we wanted to go with him to the Tiger Show – the park chief ranger had just authorized him to take us on the ride despite the gate closing hours, he just made a special concession. No way would we turn down this opportunity…

There we went for the last time on a Tiger Show. We took the same mahout, Janooh, and his elephant, Bendjeni, to take us to where the tigress was sitting. Yes, Chorbhera again. That was our first tiger we saw in our trip and it could not be more suitable to see her again on our last Tiger Show, to say goodbye.

Raj had promised that a Tiger Show with him onboard would be a totally different experience. He could better instruct the mahout to do what he wanted in order to take better positions for photography and made the ride longer, nobody else in the waiting list, so we had Chorbhera just for us now.

She was relaxed, laid down more or less on the same spot where we saw the New Male on the previous Tiger Show. She looked at us with indifference; she might have seen many other people coming back and forth in the last hour.

She was alert but not concerned with our approach, until the moment when the elephant started to break some bamboos to eat. She changed her face expression all of a sudden – she got up quickly and snarled against us, looking fiercely to the elephant as if she was telling him off. And she kept snarling until we backed off, then she just settled down again and we left her by herself again.

Raj guidance on the elephant made all the difference, we could have a great moment with Chorbhera and a lot of pictures. We looked behind as Bendjeni was taking us back to the jeep, one last look of Chorbhera, she will always be our first tiger.

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Bandhavgarh – Day 04 – Part 2

2009-06-10T00:46:00.000-03:00

Still excited about the unforgettable tiger encounters in the morning, we passed the time between breakfast and lunch counting the minutes to the afternoon game drive. The weather was so hot, so hot that we could barely stand outside our hut, where we kept reviewing the pictures and reading Deepak’s book to learn more about the tigers of the park. By that time, after having read and listened to Raj and Deepak stories during the game drives and during the “happy hour” in the evenings, we already knew all the tiger family members by name and also their line of parents and grandparents until Charger and Sita, the tigers filmed by BBC so much time ago, who turned Bandhavgarh so famous around the World.

Raj met us at lunch to tell us that he would be our guide till the end of our stay at Nature Heritage Resort. That was great news. We had so much confidence in Raj that we could just sit back on the jeep and relax; just waiting for the surprises he planned for the game drive.

We left the camp early that afternoon to get into the park in the very first minutes of afternoon period. Raj wanted to show us a little of the park ruins. We drive straight to Shesh Shaya, where there are the remaining parts of a temple to Lord Vishnu. The human figure of Vishnu lays in front of a pool – this area is in the domains of Chakradhara tigress – there could be a possibility that Chakradhara was around there to hide her young cubs from the open areas, but she was not there.

Dino then drove back to the point where we saw Jhurjhura cubs crossing the road in the morning. We learned there that some people saw the tigress and the cubs getting inside a cave to take shelter, away from the burning sun light.

All these information is exchanged between the guides as the jeeps cross each other in the roads – they stop and blab a lot in Hindi, giving no chance for us to capture anything. It often worked, but sometimes we had the impression of Raj going exactly to the opposite direction where the other guides pointed for him – we believe that Raj usually followed his own instincts rather than buying information from others. In the end, we always saw a tiger – this is what matters anyway! As we couldn’t understand a word, we took the chance to watch other things, like this serpent eagle hiding from the sun.

Jhurjhura family was still in the cave, we could barely see one of the cubs’ paws dropping out of the cave.

After a few minutes, we decide not to wait for action since they looked very relaxed, and Raj bet that they would avoid the jeeps when exiting the cave, so Raj asked us what we would like to try see next: B2 again or Mirchani cubs again? He said these were the best chances since the weather was too hot that afternoon and these tigers were the last ones seen by the mahouts after gates have been closed in the morning. So despite B2 is a fantastic cat, we decide for Mirchani cubs – as they are 2 tigers, the chances are bigger, but always keeping in mind that mathematics is not 100% applicable in the jungle.

But mathematics was on our side that time. One of the Mirchani cubs came just towards us out from the forest – vision was clear, Raj made Dino take an excellent position just predicting the cub path and we could just be face-to-face with him as he approached the road.

He crosses the road just in front of the jeep and entered the grass land in the other side. For our luck the grass was not so high and we could follow him until he found a spot to drop that big body, his back towards us, though.

That was the same cub that had the porcupine quill on his head, and we clearly see that he managed removing it – good boy – but he still scratched the itchy wounds every other time.

As his mother in the morning, he took quite some time relaxing just for delight of the audience, and he seemed not to mind the sun at all. Look at those stripes from the back of the head to the tip of his tail: down to the neck it seems to have symmetry along the spine and as we follow the line towards the tail, the patterns smoothly looses the symmetry and assumes a random design – it’s the art of the nature.

It was so lovely to see that such a beautiful tiger was growing up in the wilderness; Bandhavgarh is a real paradise for its small population of 12 tigers. We could rest the whole afternoon there, but then Raj said that we were pretty far from the park entrance and we should start driving back to try our luck with B2 near to the Chakradhara Meadows on the way to the gate.

Not much far from where we were with the Mirchani cub, we saw a gathering of jeeps along the road, the people already clicking their cameras frenetically. It could not be anything else but TIGER!. A totally unexpected sighting. Not even Raj was aware that there was another tiger nearby – at least nobody had reported any.

The tiger was simply lying on the ground very close of road’s edge over a layer of dead bamboo leaves and surrounded by bamboo thickets. A very different scenery, with new colours and a new tiger. Bokha was his name.

Bokha is a nephew of B2, precisely, the son of B3. One interesting story about Bokha is that he is the only male tiger besides B2 in Tala Range. He has conquered his own territory out of B2’s without any fight. B2, despite his size and after having systematically expelled all intruders and all other challengers from Tala Range, he has tolerated his nephew, Bokha, around his domain boundaries and left to him a piece of it. B2 is a really a king, strong but diplomatic!

We were very excited with this magic appearance! We had just read about Bokha in our room that afternoon, and then we met him personally in the jungle. His unmistakable characteristic is the broken tooth.

We kept observing the magnificent tiger yawning, then standing up and leaving into the jungle, not before squirting urine on a tree to mark territory.

What a day!

In the way back to the lodge, as soon as we crossed the park main gate, we faced a queue of jeeps – can it be a traffic jam in that place? Actually there was a reason behind that mess. The sun was already down and the tourists were jumping out of the vehicles and pointing to bushes by the side of the road. The cameras flashing indicated the presence of something interesting – what could it be? A jungle cat? A jackal? Or maybe a fox?

Nope. We also get off the jeep (no other option because the cars could not move anyway). Finally we see what was attracting so much attention of the crowd: two rat-snakes mating. Come on!

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Bandhavgarh – Day 04 – Part 1

2009-06-08T22:08:00.000-03:00

After a couple of days seeing tiger, we already start to see tigers in our dreams, the alarm calls and the tiger names, Chorbhera, B2, Jhurjhura, echoes in our heads and when we wake up early with one of the assistants knocking on the door, for a moment, we don’t know if we have just arrived from a game drive or if we are going to it. The safaris have a lasting hypnotic effect to the point of making us polarize all our thoughts to the tigers even when we are relaxed.

Raj wanted to show us the park as if it was his own home, and it really is. We had a feeling that if Raj was with us, the tigers would show up. We had not to worry about the guide or the driver to be doing the right thing, we trust him the planning for the game drives - as it always worked till this point, and we let ourselves in the hands of Siddh Baba.

Raj asks to Dino to takes us straight to the place where Mirchani tigress was seen the day before. She does not walk together her cubs anymore, but they are always around. It does not take too long to see a mahout and his elephant looking for the tigress – it was a very dense jungle area with bamboo thickets bended towards each other making arches – very picturesque – somewhere on Route C.

Some jeeps are already taking place in the side of a road, as we approach. We could see Mirchani walking through the forest. She heads to an area with no bushes, but shady, covered by a thick layer of canopies, and settled down there, immediately lying down on the ground painted of green short grass.

Dino found a way to get a good view and once more we delighted the superb opportunity of seeing that beautiful animal. This time the tigress was totally relaxed, the spot she had chosen to rest was quite cooler than the rest of the area around so she took quite a long time there for the joy of the audience of photographers, tourists and film makers watching.

She lifted the head a couple of times when another jeep arrived to join the crowd, and then Raj commands to Dino to change the position, to give us some different angles. Mirchani was really likely to stay there all the day, given the situation.

Half-hour later, she raised the head and changed her distracted face by a more alert mood. Then it took just a couple of minutes to Mirchani stand up and started walking again. Despite the increasing temperature, she decides to leave the shade and entered the jungle again. What an adorable sighting!

We were still looking for the Jhurjhura family. We had not the chance to see them yet, when it seemed that everyone else had. So we took the direction of the Rajbhera Lake, the territory of the Jhurjhura tigress, but just great egrets, ducks and a solitary kingfisher were hanging around there.

Kingfisher

Great Egret

While still circulating by that area we saw a wild boar feeding from a carcass of a male chital deer, probably killed by a tiger or a leopard. The wild boar, as the warthogs, may recur to scavenging practice sometimes. The carcass had already dragged attention of vultures. In the scene we could see the 3 species of vultures that can be found in Bandhavgarh: the King Vulture (red necked vulture), the Indian Vulture (the one with white head) and the Egyptian Vulture (shortest and crested one). Not a beautiful view, but seeing all 3 types of vultures was really a prize.

Wild Boar with Chital Carcass and Indian Vultures

King Vulture

Egyptian Vulture

A more pleasant view, in the other hand, young Rhesus Monkeys chasing each other from branch to branch on the top of a short tree, turned to be an interesting subject. The monkeys had never deceived us with boring attitude – they had always plenty of faces and poses to show, however these agitated apes had never stopped more than a few seconds for a picture.

Rhesus Macaque Juvenile

By arriving in the vicinity of Rajbhera Lake we search the area, but with no success. We spent another 30 minutes there waiting to hear some alarm call to indicate us where they could be. Raj was sure that they would come to the water any time since the temperature was raising fast, but there are no rules in wildlife.

Rajbhera Lake View

Raj decides to expand the search area and on our quest to find Jhurjhura we found fresh tracks – alarm calls coming from the jungle on the sides of the road. It was Mirchani again – one of Mirchani cubs could be seen walking between the trees not too much far from the road, but he was already going into the jungle back from wherever he was before.

Raj and Dino told us he was a Mirchani cub but we couldn’t say if he was the same one we saw some days before with the quills stuck in the head. Back home, after comparing the stripes patterns with our other pictures of male tigers, we could identify him as the other one of Mirchani brothers as his prints could not match to any pattern of the other male tigers.

Even a quick sight of a tiger is a great excitement, even more when it is totally unexpected. The search goes back to the Jhurjhura tigers, and we drove again around the lake searching for tracks and then, we cross the cars moving fast in another road – they were going towards a tiger, for sure. After chatting to each other, the guides exchange information about what is happening. The Jhurjhura family was in the other side of the road, coming from the lake (how could we have not seen them!), and the tigress and one of the cubs had already passed in front of the jeeps parked on the road crossing to the other side and went into the forest. Raj told us that a cub was still about to cross so we should be prepared for it, because the cub was hidden from our sight somewhere near the road but the people could still hear the tigress calling the cub sometimes.

We were not in a good position since we arrived quite “late” to the spot, but as Raj said, like a lightning bolt, the cub leaps onto the road and crossed it in a matter of seconds. Despite the people partially blocking our view, we could see the cub sprint towards his mother. Comparing the cub to the Mirchani cub, it is noticeable how younger the Jhurjhura cubs are. They still depend on their mother who hunts for them, while the Mirchani are already living by themselves and do not count anymore on their mother’s intervention.

Now, back to the camp.

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Bandhavgarh – Day 03 – Part 2

2009-06-01T19:17:00.000-03:00

We came back to Bandhavgarh in the afternoon, now appropriately escorted by Mr. Raj and Dino, a very skillful driver. We had been very happy in the morning joining the Tiger Show and the expectations were growing, since we have been so successful in all game drives so far.

Despite being to the park everyday and running his business there, Mr. Raj has an endless eagerness to spot tigers, as they are his passion, and he was avid to track tiger that afternoon. He saved a prayer for Siddh Baba whenever we passed the shrine past the entrance of the park, to ask for protection and for good sightings.

As we started the game drive, we met John Aitchinson of BBC with Digpal Singh waiting near Siddh Baba, they would bet on the New Male again for the afternoon

We set our course to Nilgai, the area where Jhurjuhra female and her cubs had been seen in the morning feeding from a kill, as she would probably be taking a rest somewhere still around there. As we drove through the park we saw, the brown fish owl flicking its big eyes near its nest on the top of a tree. A jeep was always there, on stand-by, with wildlife photographers who were chasing this owl, but this was the first time we could see it so clearly.

As we stand-by around the site, Raj told us that the rangers saw the New Male being chased out of range by B2. New Male had been taken by surprise by B2 patrolling the Chakradhara Meadows. New Male was looking for Chorbhera tigress when we saw him in the morning, but B2 is still very active and keeps his territory and the harem of females within very close attention and have put New Male to run. Maybe B2 and New Male could be hiding in a cave around the Siddh Baba area – good luck for John and Digpal.

Raj prefers to focus on Jhurjuhra female and the cubs, so we held still following some intuition of Raj and track signs. A mongoose steals our attention making a cracking noise behind us, just to make our imagination fly high – maybe it could be a tiger – well, not that time…

After some time spent there in total silence, we start to hear alarm calls coming from just in front of us. Chital deers calling is a strong sign of predators approaching; the peacocks joined the chorus raising our attention. I started to record the sounds (the ones I have posted before). Dino tries to change the position of the vehicle to have a better view of the hill just in front of us, but the vegetation is thick. Some more minutes of apprehension made us starting to look everywhere, at that time it seemed the alarm calls were coming from all sides – perhaps we were the predators being alarmed…but not. The silence suddenly swallows the jungle sounds and we could clearly hear a roar – it was low, coming from somewhere on the hill, but seemed still not being from so close.

We finally realize that the roars are getting louder indicating that the tiger was coming down toward us. Dino, moved the jeep once again and we finally saw it, unfortunately, it the tiger had stopped moving and decides to stay put. Well, we could barely see the tiger amongst the dry bamboo, but despite photography was not excellent, we had another of those exciting encounter.

Raj says it can be Jhurjuhra tigress or one of the cubs, but from there neither Dino nor he could tell for sure.

We can’t stay longer there as we are far from the gate – the Bandhavgarh Fort glows with the sunset lights - another fortunate game drive gets to the end.

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Bandhavgarh – Day 03 – Part 1

2009-06-01T02:03:00.000-03:00

We rushed to the jeep outside the lodge gate, we are a bit late, but in fact, the guide Deepak was still sick, and that time, we would have no guide in the car with us. Raj explains that we can choose the ranger to go with us, which will be our only guide that morning. We ask Sujan, the driver to take Siddhu with us, and he arranged this at the rangers’ post and Route C was assigned to us. We missed listening to Raj and Deepak stories while standing by the gate waiting to enter the park, but there we go for Route C.

The sunrise is still under progress and light was very weak in the jungle. We drove through winding and colorful roads. The early sun beams hit this side of the park first, and we took the chance to enjoy the whole scenery as this area is very picturesque. Strangler trees wrap the other trees like a python snake does with its prey.

Nearby along the road we could see other animals that we have seen before but passing so fast since we had always the tigers as priority. The rhesus macaques run from us quickly as we pass by. A rhesus mother kept holding firmly her baby monkey while her friend joined her crossing the road as fast as he could. Against the early morning light, the vision of the monkey running was very beautiful.

After we left the dense jungle behind we passed along a low-grass area where we were caught by surprise: “Look, look the peacock exhibiting his tail to the peafowl!!” – a peacock was displaying its beautiful queue with very bright feathers that shined a lot as the bird turned around toward the rising sun. Despite being common to spot the peacock, we found that it was not so easy to see one displaying under such clear light and with no obstructions – we were in the beginning of the mating season, then that was the first sighting of such performance.

Arriving at the Center Point, Sujan went register his position of the order of arrival and then we can continue the game drive route-free. They guide and the driver take some time in the Center Point to grab something to eat and the “chai”. In this meantime, they get the information that tiger has been located by the mahout during the morning and it is lying in a dry river bed not far from the road at the area of Siddh Baba. The cars couldn’t go where the tiger was, but the elephants did. We would go for a Tiger Show!

The Tiger Show consists in getting on-board of a sort of cradle installed on the back of the elephant. There 4 people are settled and taken for a ride guided by the Mahout (the elephant’s keeper and owner). The mahout, with his ancient knowledge, is able to drive his elephant wherever he wants just by stepping slightly on the top of the elephant’s head, giving small kicks on the back of its ears and in some occasions poking the neck with a metallic stick.

The mahout quickly turns his elephant and positions the big animal side-by-side with the jeeps parked aside on the road waiting for their turn. The “guests” scale the cradle from the top of the jeep’s roof to achieve the top and take a place. The ride immediately starts after the mahout locks the cradle with an iron bar and skillfully takes the elephant across the grassland where the dry river bed is hidden behind the bushes.

The mahout, Janooh, rides Bendjeni, the elephant that took us for the Tiger Show, while Kutapan, was the other mahout, riding Vanraj, the big bull, alternated with each other to pick people up for the ride. Kutapan is the famous mahout of Bandhavgarh, he used to ride Gotham, another big bull, but Gotham has been transferred to another zone of the park.

The experience is different, this time we are taken towards the tiger not the tiger that comes towards us. Looks like we were being taken to the presence of the king for an audience! And there he was - a huge male tiger! Not at big as B2, but a respectable big cat. The male was called “New Male” by the locals. The New Male is called like this because he came recently from another neighbor area of the park (outside Tala Range, but still from inside Bandhavgarh). He approaches the areas of Siddh Baba and Chakradhara each time deeper inside B2’s domain. There is a theory that New Male could be son of Chakradhara tigress, coming back to his birth place, and also another theory says that he could be a male looking for the missing the tigress of his harem who has been recently transferred to Sariska Tiger Reserve. Younger than B2, whatever the theories say, New Male seems to have come to challenge B2 and try take over his territory. The New Male was following Chorbhera tigress that morning, but we could not see her around.

As we crossed the dry river, the elephant turned and there we were face-to-face with New Male lying on the ground. He was quite sleepy, but with our arrival he raises his massive head and looks straight into our eyes on the top of the elephant – he is not happy with us there, but he doesn’t feel threatened even with the big elephant so close to him. Of course there is an invisible line that sets the limit of distance the tiger will tolerate our presence, the mahout does not cross the “line”.

The Tiger Show can last around 15 minutes, but this short ride is unique. Differently of the other encounters, the tiger does not ignore the curious observers. The tiger stared the elephant and looked straight to the cradle where we were. Everything is very quick, the elephant does not stay absolutely still, so it is not easy to frame the big cat and the angle is difficult sometimes when the elephant is too close to the tiger lying down on ground, but the experience was great – having seen New Male is being testimony of the history of Bandhavgarh, maybe some time from now, New Male will manage taking part of B2’s territory, who knows?

We returned satisfied to the jeep, hopping off the elephant back to the car we still remain sometime looking the elephants going back and forth until New Male decides to move from there. The elephants take back to watch where he was going and we can see him cross the fire stripe at the grassland. He is going to look for Chorbhera, maybe, but our time is over, we have to go back to the camp.

Raj was around with other guests from the lodge, he said that the next day he will join us again and promised: “You will see how a Tiger Show is different with me on-board”. We couldn’t wait for it…

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Sounds of the Jungle

2009-05-25T16:40:00.000-03:00

I told before that the experience of sighting a tiger is a burst of senses. The dust in the air of the jungle smoothens the sunlight that tries to find its way through the leaves of the trees canopies and bamboos. There is not even a breeze and the air is hot. The scent of warm wood and dry leaves blends with an odd smell of the traces left by langurs. The atmosphere is set, you know that the tiger is approaching when you listen to the alarm calls from spotted deers, peacocks and sambhar deers - if you are lucky you may hear the roar of the tiger. You cannot notice the tiger until you see it clearly - the orange color of the his fur and the black stripes of his body moving through the bushes easily betrays your vision by desguised bythe shadows and yellow tones of the foliages - it is almost invisible. Then the tiger reaches a clear spot, the light reveals the big cat moving slowly, the massive paws touch the ground so heavily that you now can't loose his track anymore. There you go, camera on hands, can't stop clicking...

Play the sound file and listen to some of the most common alarm calls we hear in the forest. You will be able to notice the high pitch isolated screaming of the spotted deer (or Chital), like a small dog barking; and the loud alarm call of the peacock, which sounds more like a quick blow of a horn immediately followed by a series of usually 5 or 6 repeated strident callings.

It is a very low-quality recording, as it has been captured by the pocket-recorder we used for tagging the events along the game-drive. But we hope it can provide a slight idea of the environment where the pictures were taken.

Cheers.

Bandhavgarh - Day 02 - Part 2

2009-05-24T22:06:00.000-03:00

The daily routine at Bandhavgarh includes coming back to the lodge at 09:30am, after the morning safari, to have the breakfast, at Indian cuisine style, already including some typical spicy food between the toasts and the cereals. And after finishing breakfast the best deal was to take a nap to compensate the early wake-up call effects, while we wait for the lunch time at 01:00pm. Or we found something to entertain ourselves for the next hours like taking pictures of the many butterflies that keep flying in the center yard of the lodge.

(The last one has the same colors of the tiger or am I getting obsessive?)

Loading the camera batteries, saving the pictures, cleaning the lenses and gear (that in fact is the most important thing to do between the game drives). After lunch Raj met us communicates that Deepak was very sick – he could not join us that afternoon so he would be going again with us as our guide. We were in good hands.

Raj told us that there were good chances of seeing B2 again that afternoon, because the park rangers saw B2 hunting a deer and hiding the remaining carcass in a bamboo thicket nearby the same place we saw him the day before. The tigers, when they do not finish eating the prey, they hide the carcass in places like this to keep it safe of vultures and other scavengers. As he entered the Ghorademon cave during the day for cooling, B2 would potentially exit the cave sometime late in the afternoon to go take the carcass back (or not…with nature you never know what is going to happen…).

Our vehicle and a bunch of other jeeps have got together in the exit of the cave to patiently wait for a majestic appearance. It seemed like everybody had been polarized by the same information that afternoon. Actually, seeing B2 is really special – who saw him before, wants to see him again whenever there is a possibility for an encounter to happen.

As if we had an appointment with B2, he emerges from the plateau of sandstone surrounding the cave.

The biggest tiger in the area then walked toward the cars, which were all pointing to the direction of the cave, so the frenzy start – all jeeps start to move at the same time to turn around and follow the path of B2 – a real mess as the road is narrow with thick vegetation on both sides. Mr. Raj started to “coordinate” the mess from our jeep, yelling to the other where they should move, he knows that we have not much time for getting stuck behind that confusion of cars. In the meantime, B2 walked through the vegetation and showed up again in the other of bushes, and then started to cross the road.

All jeeps had already found a place to be by that time, and we started to hear the burst of shots coming from everywhere around. Hypnotized by B2 eyes, we fall deeper into that encounter through the lens of the camera, and everything around disappears – the feeling of being alone with the tiger in our face just hit us again – the time slowed down, B2 moved smoothly between the cars until reached the other side of the track, deciding to walk through the bushes again.

We restarted to follow him along the road getting ahead of him a couple of times, what provided a good view of B2 walking towards us. Despite the dense foliage, it was an excellent experience again. B2 kept going for his carcass, and we had to go.

Recovering from the discharge of adrenaline, moving towards the park gate to finish our second day at Bandhavgarh, we could enjoy a beautiful sunset as we were driven back to Tala Gate.

Back in the camp, we joined the evening reunion, not around the fire (too hot for that!), but drinking Kingfisher (local beer) with Raj and the other guests. We asked Raj: How did you know that B2 was going to be really there? - He just waved his head in that typical Indian style and kept the mystery in the air…

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Bandhavgarh - Day 02 - Part 1

2009-05-23T01:18:00.000-03:00

The days in Bandhavgarh start early, very early. We had our wake-up call at 04:45am. At 05:15am we were expected in front of the lodge gate to take our gipsy. Deepak was already in the car and Sujan , the driver, helps us to hop on. We have the car just for us as the lodge is not full – in total we will be 5, the driver, the guide, the ranger (who will join us at the park gate), and the two of us. In addition, Mr. Raj had asked the night before if he could join us in this game drive, and of course we have agreed.

The Main Gate of Bandhavgarh is just a few blocks away from the Nature Heritage Resort lodge, what allow us to be the first ones (if we want), but the exact order of arrival is not that much important to get the routes permits as long as you are within the first 25 jeeps (the maximum allowed in the park). As we arrived in the Tala Gate, we take a place in the queue and Sujan immediately goes to the forest department post to pick up the morning track permit. In the mornings, the route system works as follows: each jeep is assigned to one of the 4 routes (A to D), the gate opens daily at 06:30am for the jeeps and each one must stay on the assigned track until reach a place called Central Point until around 07:30am, where the jeeps must check in and get the checkpoint registration. If a jeep is caught by the rangers in a different track or if they do not show up in the Central Point, the guide and the driver can be punished with a suspension for weeks.

After getting the Route “A” in that morning, just before the gate opened, an official park ranger gets into the jeep – it is mandatory to have a forest department ranger in each car to be the guide and to ensure that the park rules will be followed along the game drive.
Until the gate is opened by the rangers, we stay in the car watching that crazy reunion of guides, drivers and rangers. Deepak and Raj takes the time to tell us histories about the tigers of the park, and explains us the park rules.

Just a couple of seconds before the gate opens, the guides call each other and the drivers jump into their jeeps and start the engines. The game drive starts with the frenzy of the jeeps squeezing themselves through the gate almost pushing each other – really not much different from Delhi’s traffic jams. Better hold on!

The fresh air blows in our faces as when in the time game drive starts in the morning, the park is still in the shade. Our little jeep keeps going on track “A”, tearing the soft mist that floats ahead of us along the road. The sand is soft, and no jeeps have used the tracks before us that morning, so that Deepak and Raj could look for fresh pug marks.

Route “A” takes us West, and Raj explains to us that the main objective is to rush during the first minutes of the game drive in the morning is to go straight to the points where there are chances to see a tiger – this will depend, of course, if any tiger has been seen in the area of the route earlier or in the night before by park ranges – if they get any tip of the rangers and other guides, the plan will be going directly to there to check.

The track follows the border of the park, in a point where there is a stone wall built to try keep the wildlife away from the neighbor village - nothing that will prevent a tiger from passing through, but it will avoid the villagers to take cattle in the park to graze the grass – Raj explains. The road is empty as this track is quite long, and in that moment we had already slowed down to allow following any fresh sign that might indicate the presence of a tiger.

All of a sudden, as the road bended slightly to the right, a dark silhouette appears in the far end of the road – Deepak whispers: “Tiger, down on the road!” – the jeep speeds up to get us there before the animal disappears, and we quickly reach the spot, or should I say, the stripes…

The light was so good; the sun was breaking into the leaves of the trees’ canopies highlighting the road with a collection of yellowish tones, and the tiger moving away by the road alternating between light and shade stripes.

It was a young male tiger, about 20-months old, according to Raj. He was one of the Mirchani brothers, sons of B2, both already independent of their mother, the Mirchani Tigress. They are not very strong tigers, as they are still learning to hunt properly. Mirchani tigress still stays around the young brothers as a mentor, the guides told that she has even made a kill for them in the end of 2008 because they were not succeeding hunting themselves and they were becoming weak. A careful mother.

Mirchani boy kept walking along the track and refrained from time to time to try removing something stuck in his head. We could barely notice what he was trying to do, but then when he turned around to check on us, we could clearly see what was bothering him so much: a porcupine spine. Probably, in the night before, he killed a porcupine and got stung. We could notice some smaller stings in his fore leg.

It is interesting to see how comfortable this tiger is with our presence, potentially the result of the regular contact with the tourists since he was born. He stretches and rests peacefully in the middle of the road, not bothering with our presence.

We enjoy the peacefulness of this moment, as there were no other jeeps with us. Again a private encounter intensively appreciated with no rush.

As time passes, we feel the temperature of the day rising, and so does he. He stands up once more to continue his walk, however he soon exits the road and seems to prefer entering the forest where the dense foliage still offered some shelter and kept the sunlight away.

It is time again to move on. We have still our mission assignment to accomplish: we must get to the Center Point to register. The sooner you get to the Center Point, the better position for the tiger show you grant (if there is any Tiger Show). I will explain: Tiger Show is when the mahouts of the park take you for a ride on the elephant to reach somewhere away from the road where a tiger is hidden. The jeeps are not allowed to go off-road in any circumstance, and Tiger Shows only happen in the morning. No Tiger Shows were happening that morning, though.

The morning drives are always strongly focused in going for the tigers first, because the early light and temperature are more suitable for the tiger to move. Tigers are nocturnal predators and after a night of activity, they will look for a place to rest during the hottest hours of the day. As we were there in the summer, the temperatures can rise above the 40°C and then the Tiger and the early morning time is the moment when they will look for a place to rest, usually a cave, the shade of a tree or a shallow riverbed, not far from water sources. That´s when you are able to see them roaming along the roads or crossing the open areas.

So after we spot the tiger we can relax and enjoy the local wildlife, and: What is that?! - Alessandra asks Sujan to stop abruptly. Is it a tiger cub?. We all look to the left of the road, in the place totally in the shade of big ficus trees with the ground fully covered with dead leaves. It´s a jungle cat! So difficult to spot during the day, the jungle cat is as much elusive as a tiger but not so much adapted to the day, so we could just observe it quickly moving deeper into the forest, but fortunately we had the camera preset for this kind of opportunity and we could take some frames of it. One more for the collection!

Other birds also have been spotted. For bird lovers India is a paradise, we can see nice colorful birds everywhere, even outside the parks. Some are very endemic to India and to a particular region of the country, and others recall us of African birds usually seen in East Africa, but other names – a proof that Asia and Africa were linked and shared the same wildlife species a long time in the past.

Indian Roller (or Blue Jay)

Changeable Hawk-Eagle

Approaching the time to leave the park (the park gate closes at 09:30am) we come across a wild boar, the Indian version of the African warthog. It crosses the road towards a gang of monkeys – very shy animal. We noticed it was quite wet, probably from diving in the waterhole just behind the bamboos, so we decided to check, and then we saw other animals also drinking at the edge of the waterhole, including a Langur monkey. Animals drinking water are always a good subject for photograph and despite the harsh sunlight we managed taking some good pictures…

We have finish this fantastic game drive spotting some more Langur monkeys hanging around the Siddh Baba shrine, and one of them was carrying a baby. Look at this!

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Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Bandhavgarh - Day 01 - Part 2

2009-05-19T23:27:00.000-03:00

The encounter of a tiger in the wilderness is quite different than a sighting of a big cat in Africa. In Africa, the tracking activity, most of the times, reveals the lion, cheetah or leopard quite in advance of approaching it, allowing us to spot it far away and get closer in the sequence. Scanning with binoculars, a gathering of cars, radio talks, all artificial tools that the guides can count on to find the big predators.

In the jungles of India, we have to rely on the signs of the wildlife, fresh pug marks, alarm calls of antelopes, monkeys and peacocks, dead leaf and bush cracking, and sometimes the own tiger roaring, to track them. What happens is that you will usually see or hear a sign and will then stop to listen and wait quietly for the next sign of the forest, then these signs will guide you to the right place. So, in this meantime, you already start to be involved by the smells and sounds of the jungle, and the guides and drivers call their instincts to help them look for the tiger. The atmosphere is set. There is no radio communication, sometimes a SMS arrives despite the use of cell phones by the guides is prohibited by the Forest Department, and the forest is too much dense to see other jeeps in the distance in advance.

Our afternoon drive continues in the search of more tigers. After having spotted Chorbhera Tigress at Siddh Baba area we enter the Chakradhara Meadows and get around it to take a road that turns before the main elevation of the Tala Range, where the Bandhavgarh Fort is. We haven’t been to the Fort, but we can see it always from any point as it is the highest point in the region.

We had set our course towards an area called Aala Naala to follow pug marks left by another tigress that lives in that territory. We get to Ghorademon, a rocky spot, in our way back and then we meet other jeeps. The guides are following tracks of a male tiger that they said he had made a kill in the morning and had hidden the carcass somewhere near there.

We stopped there for a while and then after some time the male tiger comes toward us, just walking slowly as if we were simply not there. He is B2, the current King of Bandhavgarh, the dominant male tiger of the Tala Range. Deepak told us that he is almost 15 years-old, a very old, and thus respectful, age for a wild tiger. Despite his age he is still a massive animal, 10 feet length and weighting around 660lbs, his huge paws and the wide white whiskers give him an extreme menacing appearance. His heavy steps could be cleared heard as he moved continuously passing through the space left by the jeeps just piled along the track. He just ignores us.

He was actually walking to the entrance of a cave where there was a waterhole and a river bad, both out of our view, as the cavern seemed more like a hatch on the floor. The place is called Babehi Waterhole. B2 will go there to refresh and probably will stay far from our eyes for some time. Deepak assure us about the behavior of this tiger: he said he was going to stay there, but in the end of the afternoon, when the sun would be already much less hot, he would get out again to go back to the carcass that the other guides saw him hiding in bamboo thickets back there in the direction where we first spotted him. So we have left him in Babehi just after he entered the cave, and restarted our game drive.

Despite our search, we could not find any other tiger signs, and we then enjoy the ride through the park, watching the new wildlife that we were just meeting for the first time. We come back towards Aala Naala to take a look once more, still unsuccessful, and then we go back to Babehi Waterhole to wait for B2.

Some active langur monkeys were around the rocks totally unaware of the proximity of B2, and we in our jeep listening to Deepak stories and about his book he had just printed.

Langurs disappeared, but had not produced any alarm call, but still the movement called attention of the guides who quickly announced that B2 was getting out of the cave.

The sighting was perfect! We could clearly see him jumping up from the bottom of the hatch, scaling the cave out to the opening where we saw him earlier.

He stops and gaze all cars parked along the edge on the road, as if he was saying: “Oh, you are still here?”. And then he just starts to look for the right place to climb and finally leave the place to come after the carcass. He apparently selects a track and starts to walk again towards us.

Watching B2 so close is a real prize. He is the perfect example of a successful tiger in the wild. B2 is very important for the tourism of the park and he has recently been given a symbolic life-time achievement award by TOFT (Travel Operators for Tigers), for his contribution to the park and to the region estimated in USD7.5 million per year! We will tell more about B2 in the next chapters.

He then decides to stop and rest in the bushes, and Deepak asks Sujan: “that’s it! We must go now.” – the park rules are strict, the gate closes at 18h30, so we just go straight there taking a shortcut through Charanganga area and finally reach the Siddh Baba area and the gate just next. In the way to there, we have just stopped once to take a picture of a wild rooster, very colorful. But sunlight is gone, game drive is over!

Still sitting on the jeep, while crossing the small bridge to the village, we took just 2 minutes to reach the lodge, but it was time enough to realize how amazing our first game drive in India was. 3 terrific sightings, Chorbhera and twice B2, in one afternoon in our first safari experience in Bandhavgarh. Who could ask for more?

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Bandhavgarh – Day 01 – Part 1

2009-05-17T14:35:00.000-03:00

Our first game drive in India, and in Bandhavgarh, was about to start, it was 3:00pm when we have got into the jeep (“gipsy” as they call), to go to the main gate to get the permissions. Onboard we had Deepak and the driver Sujan. At the gate, the procedure requires that a park ranger of the Forest Department goes onboard with us throughout the game drive to guide and to ensure the good practices and rules of the park are being obeyed – this time we had Siddhu, a local experienced ranger, with us.

In the afternoons, the jeeps can go anywhere without having to keep a designated route. The route system is reserved for the morning drives only, what we will explain later on the next posts.

Deepak is focused on tracking the tigers – that is what we are all looking for, right? So we enter the park through the main gate – it may sound very silly, but we felt like entering in the “Jurassic Park” – the Bandhavgarh park is a very dense jungle in most of the areas, the vegetation is not all dry yet and the trees and bamboos are tall, filtering the sun shine along the tracks and covering the ground with reddish and yellowish tones of dead leaves. The tracks are mostly designed with fine sand. As the jeep advances into the jungle, the sunlight beams penetrate the bamboos foliages and the canopies of the tall Sal trees creating a mysterious and serene atmosphere. The air is fantastically hot, above the 40°C and the shade is so convenient.

The main objective is to find a tiger (our first one), but of course we have started getting introduced to the local wildlife. We have first spotted the Chital or Spotted Deer and the Langur Monkeys, both very typical species which we will see many times in all game drives. The park is also a great place for observing the local birds such as the Serpent Eagle and the Red-Watted Lapwing.

All of a sudden, the car stops, we hear an alarm call, a loud barking of a Sambhar Deer, a big kind of antelope. Again, and again. Deepak explains that the Sambhar alarm call is the sign of potential threat, meaning a bigcat (tiger or leopard) is around. In the right side of the track there was a hill all spread with trees, dry bushes and dead leaves, the last cracking with the heavy steps of the antelope.

The Sambhar is looking fixedly ahead and calls again. Deepak releases a whisper-shout: “Tiger! Tiger!! Keep silence!”. We couldn’t see the tiger yet, but then we saw the Sambhar standing still and looking straight forward and barking again – we then realize the sound of the steps cracking the twigs and dead leaves distinctively heavy but progressing in a smoother pace than the ones we had heard before, so we turn our heads towards where the sound was coming from and, slightly upper on the hill we notice something slowly moving through the dry bushes. Deepak points: “There, a little up, do you see? Don’t worry, the tiger will come down and cross the road in front of us, believe me!”. As magic, the distinguishable head of the bigcat materializes amongst the vegetation and, in a couple of seconds after, we can see its whole body heading downwards the hill.

Our hearts were beating fast in that moment, that one was our first tiger encounter. The moment we have planned so much and aimed to see is now coming true. The Sambhar alarm call sounds again, louder than ever, breaking the silence of the jungle echoing in all around and chilling our spines – the Sambhar is following the tiger trail, chasing it away to ensure the bigcat was really moving away from there.

Then the tiger appears from behind a tree trunk in the edge of the road. No other cars around, it was our private encounter, our very first tiger sighting! We will never forget it!

Deepak says: “This is a tigress called Chorbhera. This is her territory, around Siddh Baba”. Chorbhera crossed the road calmly, just in front of us, as predicted by Deepak, and she reached the other edge of the road on the left and dives into the open grassland covered with high vegetation. She moves slightly limping one hind leg due to an almost healed injury we could barely notice.

We could still follow her for few more minutes before she vanished in the sea of tall grass, just after a last glance of her black ears stained of white spots above the grass.

That was a fantastic moment we will keep forever in our minds. The senses, the sounds, the vision. Our first tiger encounter could not be more authentic and unique.

Elliot Neep (a professional photographer who has helped us with a lot of information about tiger photography) was totally right, the 1st tiger sighting is a very strong emotional experience. You get connected with the eyes of the tiger and the World around disappears, it rests only you and the tiger. After having lived this experience, I personally think that the deer alarm calls, the deep silence, the atmosphere of the jungle, the smells, everything in the scenery evokes the deepest human instincts of survival and all senses become accurate and focused exclusively on the big cat.

We had in mind to reserve this first encounter to enjoy the moment rather than living the experience through the lenses of our cameras, but we still have taken some good pictures despite the shaking hands – we had prepared ourselves for that!

Mission accomplished. The driver moves on.

Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve - Introduction

2009-05-17T04:33:00.000-03:00

After a long train trip and 2 hours drive from Katni to Bandhavgarh, we finally arrive to the Nature Heritage Resort, the jungle lodge where we will be call “home” for the next 5 days. Situated just 2 minutes from the main gate of the park, this lodge, owned by Mr. Raj Sharma, is the best place to be if you want to photograph the tigers.

The game drives led by Mr. Raj and his friend Mr. Deepak Talan are all focused on providing the best photography opportunities of the park main attraction. We have been really astonished with their knowledge of the tiger behavior and the professionalism and ability to track them in the jungle.

The other side of the work of Mr. Raj and Mr. Deepak and the lodge is all about the wildlife conservation. Being founders of Tiger Guards conservation program, they play a very important role for the park conservation and to the safety of the tigers in Bandhavgarh as a source of extra funds for the park patrolling guards.

For more information about the lodge and the conservation program visit the Nature Heritage Resort homepage.

We would like to thank Mr. Raj and to Mr. Deepak for the perfect experience we had in Bandhavgarh (in the next posts in this blog you will see why). It has been a privilege to have the best tiger experts team with us, also with the excellent driver Dino, what we called the “Dream Team” of the Nature Heritage Resort, providing so many excellent photography opportunities in absolute all game drives we had, and for sharing with us the so much interesting stories about the tiger characters of Bandhavgarh.

Bahut, bahut shukryia!

Day 02 - Delhi

2009-05-17T03:54:00.000-03:00

Today we will start with New Delhi again, but actually, today’s Delhi is the result of a union of 7 cities and 25 villages. The part visited first in the morning belongs to the Imperial City, one of the oldest 4 situated in the South, and it is called Qutab Minar.

Pictures:
1. Qutab Minar
2. Koran engravings on the minaret
3. Minaret’s sculptures
4. Detail of old wall on temple ruins

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The Qutab Minar refers to the 73 meter-high minaret itself, but in fact it is a complex of ruins of ancient temples of the first Muslim’s domination. The place provides nice pictures from different angles, and again, the sandstone with high rates of iron metal gives the colorful contrast amongst the blue sky, the stones and the people and the birds.

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It is not difficult to spot the parakeets hanging on the tall walls remaining from the destroyed buildings. The strong green tones of the parakeet are almost hypnotic when it rests against the reddish patterns of sandstone. The monuments and the minaret present lots of mosaics and Koran’s writings carved in the stone, covering almost 100% of the surface. A really stunning piece of architecture.

Pictures:
5. Parakeet hanging
6. Parakeet on ruins walls

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There is also an iron pillar made of iron but that have never got rusted despite its age of 1600 years. This is explained by the fact that the pillar has a rate of 98% of iron in its composition. The pillar is the single remaining artifact of the original Hindi temples that existed at that place before the Muslim invasion – all the Hindi temples have been destroyed to give place to mosques and the minaret.

Pictures:
7. Qutab Minar ruins and the Iron Pillar
8. The Iron Pillar

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From there we just passed by the Lotus Temple. A Hindi temple with the format of a lotus flower. It was really crowded since it was Sunday, and then we just stopped for a quick look before continuing the guided tour.

Picture:
9. The Lotus Temple

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From there we went to the Humayun’s Tomb, is a mausoleum built in a style very similar to the Taj Mahal. The gardens are beautiful, with the water channels, typically noticed in the Persian garden style.

10. Humayoun’s Tomb entrance view
11. The Humayun’s Tomb with the fountains at the garden
12. Gurdwara (Sikh Temple)
13. Tomb’s side view from the garden

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The monument is very photogenic, due to the gardens and the stone colors. The area is surrounded by other monuments, as this Sikh Temple (Gurdwara, or “Home of the Guru”).

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This was our last point to visit in Delhi. We went to Connaught Place again to go the the Veda’s Restaurant, where we had a very spicy vegetable tandoori plate (“tandoori” means grilled), and where we said goodbye to our guide.
Pictures:
14. Sweeper woman at the Humayun’s gardens
15. Squirrel at the gardens

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Johnson drove us back to the Lutyen’s Bungalows to pick up our luggage and go straight to the Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station where we were supposed to take our first train leg in this trip. Gondwana Express, departing at 15:25. Destination: Katni, the closest village to the Bandhavgarh National Park.

Pictures:
16. Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station
17. Waiting for the train departure to Katni

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We were in Johnson’s hands to find the right platform and the wagon designated in our tickets. The train station is a real mess. We couldn’t make it without his help – the boarding procedure became more familiar along the journey, but for this first time his help was simply essential.

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Then we have got our places in a private cabinet (first class berths) and a 14 hour long journey to Katni. I cannot complain of the 1st class berths, but you have to open your mind and allow adjustments to your concepts of cleanness and comfort. Fair enough!

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Day 01 - Delhi - Part 2

2009-05-17T00:14:00.000-03:00

Just after the our morning visit to the Old Delhi, we head back to the New Delhi area where in the afternoon we will visit some other interesting places.

Pictures:
1. Raj Ghat (Gandhi Memorial)
2. Rajpath Avenue

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We cross the city reasonably fast given the traffic of tuc-tucs, bicycles, motorbikes, cows and people, a lot of people. We followed a big wide avenue called Rajpath where there is a reunion of Government Buildings and in the beginning of the avenue there is the India Gate, an Indian version of the Arc du Triomphe, built in memory of the “Immortal Soldier” in honor of the Indian soldiers killed in the WWI. Aligned with the Indian Gate, seen from the Rajpath avenue, a Chatri (kind of hut very frequently used in Indian architecture as a shelter) gets framed by the Gate.

Pictures:
3. India’s Champs-Elysées
4. The India Gate framing the Chatri

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There is who compares the Rajpath with the Champs-Elysées. I admit this scene rings a bell.

The buildings of the Secretariat are seen along the Rajpath and the Government Palace called Rashtrapati Bhawan are the main samples of city’s architecture which escape from the hindi-persian style. The Rashtrapati Bhawan is inaccessible behind a tall fence and gate, but interesting things happen just in front in the gardens.

Pictures:
5. Secretariat Building
6. Monkeys and Canons
7. Elephant-crowned columns of the Rashtrapati Bhawan palace

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Rhesus macaques family plays around the canons and take the big sandstone columns crowned with elephant statues as vantage points to extend the range of surveillance of their territory.

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Moving back to the hotel area, we decide to look for some gifts and art pieces to take as souvenir from our first trip to India, so we go to the Connaught Place, a ring of stores and restaurants and other businesses, and the guide tooked us to an emporium where we could find some nice handcrafts and tissues, écharpes, etc, and next we left the packets in the hotel and finally the driver left us by the entrance of the Lodhi Gardens.

This city park remains from the 15th Century and has a green garden with pathways where the locals stroll and take their time when the day cools down. There are some ancient buildings, Mohammed Shah’s Tomb and the tombs of other unknown families, the Bara Gumbad and Sheesh Gumbad, where we appreciated the sunset just before having a dinner at the Garden Restaurant inside the park. It was a very nice place with a verandah in the second floor where we have our first spicy meal (the first of an endless series). Oddly the light went off (apparently a frequent issue in India), and we just stayed there with the candle lights, while we finished and observed some people settle a party in the restaurant’s front garden, and then live music started on that party…a final touch for our first night.

Pictures:
8. Lodhi Gardens by Night
9. Sheesh Gumbad

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Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Day 01 – Delhi - Part 1

2009-04-30T14:58:00.000-03:00

09:30am. After 14-hours flight from Sao Paulo to Dubai, 5 hours waiting for transfer to Delhi and more 4.5-hours flight from Dubai do Delhi, we finally arrive in Delhi. The long trip and the +08:30 time gap between India and home left us as zombies, but we were very excited the trip was just beginning, so after immigration proceedings we went exchange some money (“some money” indeed is not appropriate since the dollar-rupees rate produced a huge pile of 100 rupees bills) and next were already searching for Mrs. Daljeet, our local agent from India Safaris. We have been in contact for so much time planning the trip that we were truly anxious to meet her personally.

Everything was ready, the driver, Johnson, took us for our hotel in Delhi (The Luthyens Bungalows) – a very simple guesthouse located in the embassies regions, called Imperial City. The place has a country-side style (not so well-conserved to be honest), but fair enough for a couple o nights as the main objective of this trip was not in Delhi.

We have quickly got installed and have been briefed by Daljeet about the plans, trains tickets, vouchers and everything, and after a late-breakfast we have soon departed for the first part of the visit to Delhi. Actually, Delhi has surprised us with a quite green-look (not a vertical city with lots of buildings and no trees) and we headed towards the Red Fort for the first ancient site in the list.

Pictures:
1. Tuc-Tucs
2. Parakeet in the hotel backyard

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The Red Fort is located in Old Delhi (for local people Delhi city is only one, there is no Old Delhi or New Delhi, actually the Old Delhi is newer than most part of New Delhi, because the Old/New reference is far behind in India’s history and Old Delhi has been destroyed and rebuilt after Delhi had been already expanded toward New Delhi’s side). Red Fort built in Delhi by the emperor Shah Jahan, has been inspired in the Agra Fort, so that the same architecture and design has moved from Agra to Delhi after Agra lost its post of Mughal Empire capital to Delhi.

Pictures:
3. Main Gate (Lahore Gate)
4. Diwan-i-Aam courtyard view from the throne balcony

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Actually our objective is not to tell the details of the history and architecture (we admit that there is a lot of interesting things we have learned after listening to the guide’s lectures, but we would have to spend dozens of pages just telling the years of stories around the monuments), we would rather share the beautiful pictures taken in these places to give you an idea of them, and let you decide if it is interesting to visit them if you ever get to India.

The Red Fort is all surrounded by a big defense wall and the buildings inside are all made of red sandstone or white marble with all sort of gems inlays. There is a lovely green garden, very pleasant to refrain a bit of the heat of India’s summer.

Pictures:
5. Diwan-i-Aam pavilion columns
6. Lady´s Chamber columns
7. Courtyard with white pavilions in marble

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Out of Red Fort, we’ve met Surya waiting with a rickshaw driver to take us to the mosque of Jama Masjid of Delhi, also located in Old Delhi just a few blocks far from the Red Fort. The rickshaw ride is really crazy because the driver find his way through the narrow streets of the Chandni Chowk amongst other rickshaws, tuc-tucs, cows, buses, people, dogs, cars, bikes, scooters, motorbikes, unbelievably without shocking with anybody or anything in the middle of the way. It is a good opportunity to see the alleys where the small businesses dedicated to selling the tissues, saris and brocades for the colorful Indian wedding clothes.

Pictures:
8. Rickshaw ride staring point
9. Chadni Chowk market stores

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The rickshaw dropped us at the entrance of Jama Masjid mosque (Friday’s Mosque), where we had to leave our shoes by the door and Alessandra had to wear a Muslim’s dress over her clothes before entering. The building is a mosque (what else to say…), it is a huge massive mosque also built mostly on red sandstone – the time of the day was not so good for pictures since we had the sun shining hard at noon time when we were there, but we have selected some interesting angles to give a slight glance of it for you.

Pictures:
10. Jama Masjid main façade
11. Jama Masjid main entrance from inside
12. Jama Masjid ornaments

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After this session, we started heading back to New Delhi area again, where we have started to see the second part of the first day in the city.

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

A Trip to India

2009-04-27T20:00:00.000-03:00

Welcome to India

Here we start to share with you the best of our first trip to India. For us, who have been many times toAfrica, there was a mixture of high expectations and fear of disappointment because we will have always Africa to compare with.

The objective of this trip has been, as always, the wildlife experience, but as it was our first time there we had also to spend some time to meet some other urban places to have a glance of the people, the culture and the landmarks. And the urban part of the trip has been lovely! We have visited only Delhi and Agra, but just this glimpse of both cities have been enough to surprise us with a beautiful architecture and exquisite food.

Objectives have been accomplished! The Indian jungles are so great! They have a complete different atmosphere than the african savannahs, I should say, unique (it is one of those places were the temperature, the sounds, the light and the smells form together an unmistakable identity.

And of course, the main attraction of all, the tigers! The tiger safari was our target number one and we could not be better blessed in this trip when speaking of tiger sightings! Well, this is just the introduction, so we will let the to tell you the tiger experience in detail on the next chapters.

So, we have spent 2 days in Delhi, then 4.5 days in Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh, 4 days in Ramthambhore National Park in Rajastan and 1.5 day in Agra. Then you will find in our next posts our day-by-day experiences and, of course, the photographs. We hope you enjoy and maybe get inspired to pay a visit to the Indian Tigers….!

Keep watching… the adventure is just beginning…

MASAI MARA - DAY 01 - Getting to the Mara

2009-04-03T01:28:00.000-03:00

After a dizzy flight through a typical equatorial thunderstorm, we landed on the core of Masai Mara, Olkiombo Airstrip just by the Talek River, where it became our home for the next days. The crew took us to the Mara Intrepids Camp where we will meet our tent-room and join the remaining fellows of our group for a quick game drive before the sun goes down. In the Masai Mara the rules are strict and you cannot drive after sunset. We have been very lucky, the light could not be better and the clouds of the storm we had just flown through gave a heavy dark background to the scenery, and from the other side, the golden glow of the lightbeams of the lowering sun provided the final touch to the beautiful view of the Mara plains – a fantastic warm welcome of Masai Mara.

LANDING ON THE MARA

The first scene we have came across was the Olkiombo pride finishing their afternoon feast. Just before we have got there this pride had chased and killed a blue wildebeest and then they were still working on the carcass.

FEAST IN THE PLAINS

LIONESS AFTER KILL

Lionesses and cubs calmly feeding from the wildbeest body, there was no sign of other predators or hyenas nearby, so they had all the time to eat without being disturbed. We could get very close to the site and 400mm for the close-ups was more than enough. The beautiful light filled in the scene also in more wide ranges of view, so we just could frame all the scene with a superb background – and this was just the first encounter!

HUNGRY LION CUB

We left the happy lion family and continued our quest for more action, now with the comfort sensation of having already our daily dose of excitement. Not far from there, we had a beautiful open view of the plains and luck striked again: three cats moving across the plain. With the full yellish light of sunset just hitting on them , 3 cheetahs have materialized just in front of our path.

CHEETAHS TRIO WALKING

We had just to observe their movement and position the vehicle for just waiting them to come to us. And they did.

THE 3 BROTHERS

MARKING TERRITORY

The 3 cheetahs were actually 3 adult males, brothers. They were Honey’s sons, or the 3 Honey Boys as BBC Bigcat staff called them in the latest series (BBC Bigcat Live 2008). They are orphans because their mother, Honey, was accidentally killed by a tranquilizer dart that stung the wrong spot, but now after being rescued in 2007 and reintroduced back into the wild, they became “killing machines”. We were told that they successfully kill prey every day and they are indeed look very strong and in good shape.

ONE OF HONEY’S SONS

They stop and take their time marking the territory by urinating around a tree. Next, they continue the stroll just straight until they reach a small elevation of ground (actually a earth mount produced by the park staff after digging to get stones for paving the main tracks). Cheetahs are very alert cats and, as a technique of surveillance, they like staying higher from the ground to get a better view of the neighbourhood and it is then usual to see them on top of termite mounts, low dead tree branches or small ground elevations like this.

UNDER THE TREE

They sit and relax, and they seem to be, like us, just comemorating the end of one more fantastic day. The just stay there for a while waiting for the sun goes down. Time for very special sillouette pictures. It was very tricky to take this picture because the vehicle was also in another small elevation and then we had to keep as low as possible to get the backlight just behind the cheetah and the light vanishes very fast, but we have got it! Thanks to Mark tips.

WATCHING SUNSET

SUNDOWNER

We have been so luck today. It is amazing how much things we could see in just 1 and a half hours of game drive. The Masai Mara is really wonderful. Time to go back to the camp for a good shower and dinner. What a day we are starving!!!

THE CHEETAH DUSK

Safari in Nairobi National Park

2009-04-03T00:55:00.000-03:00

Early in the morning we were picked up by the driver for a half-day game drive in Nairobi National Park. The weather was not that great in the morning, after showers in the night. We headed straight out of the city center to take the road around the National Park and then there we were by the gate where the guide would spend some minutes with the paperwork.

INTRODUCTION

The Nairobi National Park has many samples of animals and they live wild, but the population of bigcats is very reduced due to poaching in the park vicinities, we could not see one single cat there and the lions that subexist in this system are less than 10, so it would be really a lucky morning if we could have seen one of them. Most of we could see in this park are the antelopes that have breeded without fear of becoming prey of the big cats. But the park still reserved us some good stuff.

FIRST MORNING SIGHT

The giraffe sillouette marks the begin of this game drive, and then on every corner we find impalas, zebras, waterbucks, coke hartebeests, elands and gazelles.

WILDLIFE AND SKYLINE

The Nairobi skyline always recall us that we are close to the city neighbourhood. The ostriches and antelopes graze the field as if they were far in the wilderness.

BLACK RHINO

The weather gets better and we keep following the tracks until we finally find a back rhino. This has been particularly great for us, because before this time we had just spotted a single black rhino but it was so far that we could not even take a picture. And black rhinos are really shy creatures.

ANOTHER BLACK RHINO

They could not bear our presence for any longer than a few seconds and they start to move away, and not far from where we have spotted this black rhino we have found another one. Should I mention it was shy, too? It gave us a hard time to try get closer because we have to go just a little go off-road to see over the hill where it was running from us, but the rocks in the ground prevented us from going any further.

CROWNED CRANE

It was not bad at all, we were lucky to have spotted not one, but two black rhinos, and that was the very first time for us with this animal. The journey continues until we come across with the birds we think are the most beautiful birds of Africa. The crowned crane.

FEMALE CROWNED CRANE

There was a flock of them, not such a generous flock, but we could see males and females individuals. The males are the most colourful while the female keeps restricted to more pale brown feathers than the bright red and yellow patterns we can see in the males.

CATTLE

WELL-FED CROC

We made a stop and got off the vehicle to walk along the border of a small river that separates one of the borders of the park from the common land occupied by maasai villagers. They bring cattle to drink water from the river and that keeps this croc well fed.

TURTLE ON A BRANCH

The walk is guides by a park ranger and we just can spot croc, hippos, phythons and turtles, but this time we were not so lucky. The hippos had left for a walk far into the bush and no phytons around. But we have seen these huge turtles just over a branch taking a sun bath.

GIRAFFES ON THE RUN

We have to run now, because we have yet to go to another site before we head to the airport and to the Masai Mara.

A visit to David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

2009-02-05T19:59:00.000-02:00

We reserved some time in the day before taking the plane to the Masai Mara to meet one place which we had already in our mind for a long ago. We admire the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust for their work on rescueing young elephants in danger and their effort to reintroduce them in the nature.

Arriving a bit late after noon, we have caught the little orphans introduction already in the middle and the explanation about the DSWT done by the staff. There were 3 very young elephants under care of the staff underneath the umbrellas drinking water from a tank.

These young orphans are really very young and have a lot of problems and illnesses to be solved before getting out of danger. Some of them arrive at the institution after have fallen into man-made holes in the ground like wells or after being trapped in poacher’s snares, so their lives are still under threat, and are kept under medication and full attention of the Dr. Daphne Sheldrick.

After removing the youngsters back into their stockades, they bring the “veterans”,the ones that have already managed recovering from the first part of their tragedy. These lads now have to grow together, get stronger and socialize amongst themselves until they reach the right status for being moved to the Tsavo unit of DSWT to be introduced into a resident step-family constitued of other grown up orphans, prior to being releasedinto the wild.

In the first half of the time with the ellis they nurse them with the special milk prepared by Dr. Daphne (elephants cannot drink bovine milk under risk of having serious digestive probems). They freak out for the milk! They scream,they grunt, they run!

Finally, with belly full of milk, they go play in the muddy waterhole. They really enjoy being there, they look so happy covering themselves of mud!

They drink and splash water all over the place. They push, they fall, and they roll like your puppy playing in the backyard, but they are just a little bigger!

In order to complete the elephants’ bath a sprinkle of dust crowns the mess. This sort of bath ritual is actually a way elephants can cool down their bodies, remove the parasites from the skin and then protect them with natural sunscreen of mud.

Observing these youngsters playing is really a miracle provided the background of this elephants and the circumstances that took them there. But this is a real reward for the team of DSWT and the proof that this animals have another chance to go wild again - litterally.

Time flies when you watch these amazing creatures so close, and yet that you always have the feeling that your time there was not enough, you can still think that you can come back someday and in the meantime you can follow up the news about the elephants you have just met and help DSWT doing donations. This is the minimum you can do after you have profited of such unforgettable encounter.

Take a chance to meet the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and foster an elephant or help their other actions right now at www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org.

WELCOME

2009-02-05T19:43:00.000-02:00

Welcome to the blog of Alessandra and Cassio. Here you will find notes from our trips and the pictures we take. The main theme of our trips is usually wildlife, so if you love to travel and love photography, you are in the right spot. Enjoy!