Ranthambhore - Day 04

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 01

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



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Bandhavgarh – Day 05 – Part 2

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!


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Bandhavgarh – Day 05 – Part 1

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.





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