Our Trek Into The Wildlife Park

The following day we did a one day trek into the tiger reserve. Luckily it was just Stu and I on the trek with the company of two local guides - one to lead the way and the other to go at the rear - for safety. We went in with the full expectation of not seeing any wildlife - much like our jungle trek in Bolivia. The animals are all far too clever to allow some clumsy, noisy humans to stumble across them. Anyway, we'd seen plenty of wildlife outside the park during our stay to satisfy our need to see exotic animals. Also our guides warned us that it was very unlikely that we would see any animals, only insects and birds would grace us with their presence.

Immediately as we started our trek, it was clear that elephants frequented this place regularly as there was heaps and heaps of dried elephant dung. Ten minutes later, we came across more fresh dung and our guides informed us that the dung was from last night, and so one could be close by. Literally, a few minutes later we were blessed with an elephant sighting. He was in the distance, alone and chewing on some bamboo in a really thick part of the jungle. He was very difficult to see, and we could only really make out the flapping of his ears and the odd movement from his trunk. Not good for photos, but it was great to see him, even if just a glimpse.

After 30 minutes we stopped for breakfast and tea, before making the climb in the sultry heat up a steep hill to the top of the escarpment. Here, we were blessed with great views of the reserve, although we couldn't see to the other end of the park - a mere 750km away!

We walked down into a clearing, where the smell of rotting flesh began to fill the air. Just over the other side of a small stream, the carcass of a bison lay rotting. The animal had clearly been the dinner of the tigers and our guide advised us that the carcass was 20 days old and that this was a usual spot for the tigers to feed. I was hoping that was as close as we were going to get to see the tigers and I certainly didn't fancy being their next meal!

After an hour or two, we came once again to a clearing and as we walked through the bushes, we came across a family of elephants happily feeding at the bottom of the hill. There were 9 elephants in total, two of which were babies. We crouched down and watched in awe as the realisation hit us we were watching wild elephants, in their natural habitat. It was really special.

We moved across the clearing and settled down for lunch, away from the elephants. Stu and I watched the midday heat rising from the dried out lake as we let our lunch go down. A few minutes later, one of the guides came rushing to us and called us over. We followed him to view the elephants again by the little water left in the lake. They had just had a bath and were cooling off with mud on their backs. This time we were much closer and got some much better shots. We were quite in awe.

The rest of the afternoon, we wandered back through the thick woods to the tribal village and then onto Kumily. We thanked our guides for being so great and set off home, exhausted and exhilarated.