The only challenge with sleeping in a tree at the edge of the jungle is that the wildlife lives here too. At 2am last night some small fuzzy thing came to visit. On Kris’ pillow. She of course woke up with a start and shocked me. After we calmed down a bit we turned off the lights and went back to sleep. He/she came back again. So we finished the night with the flashlight on to keep it away. At least we had to get up at 450am for our morning drive.
Park gates open at 6am sharp and you have to be there early to get a route. They slice the park up into 4 different drives so everyone isn’t on top each other.
This morning we went to Zone 1 and had route A and D. Lots of birds, not so much cats. At least at the beginning. We did get a very close but quick glimpse of a leopard. Very cool since there are only 15 of them here in a 500 acre park.
And the she had enough of seeing us.
I mentioned that we saw a bunch of birds. There are 253 species here. We didn’t see them all but it sort of felt like it after a while.
Crested Serpent Eagle
Eagle Hawk
Grey Hornbill
Kingfisher
Flycatcher – crazy long fluffy tail feathers.
There are elephants you can ride here. We met them on the trail somewhere in the middle of the park.
This is the drink we had offered as a prior to breakfast refresher!
Banana Shake/Smoothie. Tis a rough life indeed!
After breakfast it was time to catch up on the blog in the Tree Bar.
Then more food for lunch. Yet more awesome food. Why is it in the middle of nowhere you get great food and in the middle of a city you get crap?
We were supposed to go back out for our afternoon drive at 230. Slight rain delay meant 4pm was a better time. No point going out if we are just going to get soaked and not see anything.
At 4pm off we went back into zone 1 but B and D this time. It is starting to look familiar in some places. Still beautiful.
Another Serpent Eagle, this time drinking water from a fresh puddle.
White Hornbill, larger cousin of the Grey one from this morning.
Red Faced Macaque (Red backside too!) This one was not impressed with us.
Tomorrow we have one more safari drive in the morning. Then a 6-7 hour ride in the tourist cars to Khajuraho.
As of tomorrow we are back in cities so wifi should be just fine. Hopefully we’re not too exhausted by another 450am start followed by a 4 hour safari, followed by a 6 hour shitty road drive.