I didn't have the faintest idea that the educational trip to Kumbhalgarh would turn into my second wildlife spotting venture after the Jim Corbett national park. This park came to my knowledge a few days before we left for our trip to the historical Kumbhalgarh. In fact, I wasn't hesitant to see more animals inspite of living with three! Personally, I am a wildlife enthusiast and I love being tied up in the ropes of nature, so this national park made me really excited and I also hoped this would make up for our disappointment in Jim Corbett visit.
The park was about five kilometers away from our hotel and 65 km from Udaipur City. Like any other national park, visitors were allowed in two slots-early morning and late afternoon.There were equal chances of sightings in the evenings and morning in the month of Feburary. The temperature was pleasant in the evenings but the mornings were cold (in the month of February).The gates of the park open at 6.00 am, we were there 15 minutes before only to be welcomed by howling dogs. The driver of the jeep came back 15 minutes later with a rusted key and an old wrinkly man.
The guide is as important for a safari as wheels to the jeep. The guide who comes along with you is useful in many ways. His eyes are like an eagle's and he helps you to spot animals. He knows the forest better than the back of his hand and his ears are more sensitive to the sound of animals than to his spouse. In our case, the guide was an old bony man with more wrinkles on his face than barks on a tree. He covered his head and face with a blanket and I was really not sure if his eyes and ears were physiologically competent.
The terrain was mountainous with bumpy roads and steep slopes, which made the jeep jerk. It was fascinating to enter the jungle in the dark, it was colder than my anticipation but I was determined to battle the cold as I stood at the back of the jeep letting cold breeze slap me.I pierced my eyes all around longing to see a wild one, there was some sort of unique silence at that time and the sound of the tyres dominated anything audible.
Suddenly a confident voice spoke from the front of the jeep. It was the old man, he pointed our attention to a herd of deer. Sitting casually, half asleep he was more alert than us and that was a beginning of a friendship which lasted for next five hours.He told us that the jungle has many endangered animals like sloth bear, jackals, leopards, wolfs and hyenas; birds like red spur owls, parakeets and white kingfisher can also be seen." Last evening a family had sighted a leopard and your chances are very high too," he said.
Experiencing dawn from darkness in the woods was as rare as sighting a leopard in the wild for me. The black faded to grey, the grey to dark green and then a lighter green as if nature in its utmost kindness is helping your eyes to adjust to light gradually. The next two hours our spirits were high and optimism intact as we tried every trick from the book to spot the leopard but nope! no luck. We saw a wild hog and kingfisher. We reached the end till where the jeeps are allowed, stopped at the water hole and turned back towards the gate.
The guide felt sorry for our enthusiasm and told us that if we paid him an extra 1000 Rs, he would take a diversion from the usual path. He would take us to a deeper and more mountainous part of the jungle which had higher chances of spotting a leopard and a sloth bear.We tested him by asking him to put in mathematical terms what he meant by chances and he told us that there was 80% likelihood to spot one. The diversion was through a very narrow, unclear, steep passage that brought us to the top of a dense bushy hill. He asked the driver to wait and told us to be quite. The undergrowth was so thick that even if there was a leopard or a beer that morning we were not lucky enough. The guide told us that we should have carried high power binoculars, it did make sense and I made a mental note to invest in one as soon as I return to Mumbai.
No sighting for us but it was indeed a gorgeous jungle in the Aravalli Range, there was thick undergrowth, bamboo trees and a perfect opportunity to be primitive.