Tiger Safari

When I learned that tiger safaris were available in India, I knew it was something I had to do.  So I jumped on the opportunity to join a group trip earlier this month.  Although everyone was pumped to see tigers, we also saw lots of other interesting animals along the way.

One was the rufous treepie.  These orange and black birds were bold and fearless around us.  We first encountered them when our vehicle was stopped and one of them landed on our vehicle's side-view mirror and then hopped over to the window sill.  He peered inside as if he was inspecting the dashboard guages.  Maybe he should have looked harder because the driver had to try several times to get the engine to turn over when we were ready to move along.  Later that morning, we took a rest stop and I pulled out some coins to pay for the toilet.  Suddenly I felt something on my head.  It was a rufuous treepie who mistook the coins in my hand for food!

The perfect perch for a hungry rufous treepie

I had learned during my safaris in Africa that although everyone gets excited about the big cats, the most common type of animal to see is antelope.  This didn't bother me because I think they are graceful creatures and I enjoyed using my safari eyes to distinguish among the various types of antelope.  True to form, we saw several different antelopes on this trip.  The most common was the spotted deer.  Our guide joked they are called that because they are so populous that everywhere you look you can spot one.  Hardy-har-har.

Spotted deer grazing under the trees

We also saw several groups of grey langurs.  Thankfully, these monkeys weren't as friendly as the rufuous treepie so we didn't have any close encounters.  But we did get to watch them chase each other and hang out in the trees.  

Love this langur's perfectly straight l-o-n-g tail!

When we set out on our afternoon safari ride, we had barely entered the reserve when we saw a group of vehicles stopped on the road ahead of us.  We pulled up and looked out excitedly as the guide told us there was a tiger!  We watched as the tiger appeared and walked through the trees alongside our vehicle.  Our driver executed a three-point turn and followed her, stopping so that we could again wait for her to approach and snap photos as the tiger walked past.  We did this again until we encountered more vehicles on the road.  Those drivers didn't have space to turn around, so they ended up driving backwards as our growing convoy continued to follow alongside the tiger.  I would guess the tiger came as close as 25 yards at one point!  We followed the tiger for close to 30 minutes before she hunkered down in the brush and we got tired of waiting for her to start walking again.

Tiger sighting!!

We were so excited about the tiger, but our safari ride had only just begun, so we continued our drive.  We saw more rufous treepies, spotted deer and langur, as well as peacocks, crocodiles, and other birds and antelopes.  And as we were leaving a few hours later, we saw the tiger again!  Our guide said it was the same tiger, who had continued on her walk.  How lucky we were...not only to see a tiger at all, but to see one up close multiple times!!

Erica and Karime with the beautiful Rajastan landscape