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| There she was. We couldn’t have asked for a better vantage point. |
We never expected to see a tiger in India. However, we’re scheduled for six whole days on safari in two different national parks. We are now at Tiger’s Den Resort in Bandhavgarh National Park and upcoming on the 26th, Tuli Tiger Resort in Kanha National Park.
We were up bright and early at 5:00 am and having coffee tea (as they call morning beverages here in India) by 5:30 am in the dining room of our lovely resort. Both of us were still tired but also pumped for our first-morning game drive that began at 6:00 am while it was still dark.
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| Our hearts were pounding with excitement while we attempted to take photos. |
We were bundled up with blankets on a chilly morning as we headed to Gate 1 of 3. Our diligent travel agent for India planned for us, a driver and a naturalist, alone in a small open-sided vehicle Jeep with elevated seats.
The naturalist sat in behind us on the seats usually reserved for additional guests to ensure we could easily hear him and provide him with an elevated view.
After the first hour and a half without seeing more than some spotted deer, monkeys, and bush chickens, we resigned ourselves to the fact that spotting the elusive tiger may be more of a dream than a reality.
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| Such a beautiful animal! |
And then, around 8:00 am, it happened. Our guides were able to predict a tiger in the area when varying antelopes were rapidly on the move, monkeys and birds were particularly noisy.
She was walking perpendicular to the road, and as shown in our photos, she bravely crossed the road at one point. Our guide explained the tigers weren’t as intimated by safari vehicles as one might think. They grew up in the park, a popular destination for many wildlife enthusiasts for decades.
Oh, yes, I wish we could have been able to get better photos with more closeups. But, since my new laptop arrived, I sadly discovered it didn’t have a slot for a camera data card. I tried to Bluetooth the camera to the laptop, but that didn’t work.
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| She didn’t seem to be disturbed by all the gawkers. |
The only option for the future is to purchase an adapter to fit Chromebook, but for now, we’re sadly stuck using our phones. And, although the photos are adequate, they surely aren’t the closeups we’d have been able to get with the camera.
Right now, using my phone as a hotspot, since there’s no WiFi in the rooms at the resort (not good), I was having trouble gaining access to the photos in a timely fashion. Hopefully, by dinnertime, the images were in my cloud, ready to be uploaded to this post.
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| A pretty scene we spotted in the national park. |
Hopefully, as you are reading this, we’ll have plenty of photos we could upload.
This afternoon at 2:30 pm, after the 1:00 pm lunch, we’ll go out on our second game drive of the day. After seeing this morning’s tiger, we can sit back and relax and enjoy nature, and whatever may come our way.
Happy day to all. We’ll be back with more soon.