It's 5 a.m.. The alarm clock is no regular, electronic one. This one arrives in the form of a gentle Indian voice outside our Swiss style tent. "Good morning, Sir". Pause for a few beats. "Good morning, Sir". Pause, repeat. Finally, roused from sleepy slumber Eric replies, "Hello". Slowly, he gets out of bed, walks to our tent fly doorway and thanks the friendly staffer at Jim's Jungle Retreat for the wake-up reminder.
We have exactly 29 minutes now to get dressed, drink the freshly brewed masala chai and eat the cardamom cookies brought with the morning tea tray. This is our fourth morning in northern India. We are staying at the Jim Corbett Park and Tiger Reserve- located in the Himalayan foothills. The temperature is cool at night partly because of location and partly because it's late February. This makes it a bit more difficult to leave the comfort of the warm bed.
Suddenly I recall this is actually happening. We are really here! To possibly see a beautiful wild Bengali tiger, one of the world's endangered species, in its natural environment.
At exactly 5:30 a.m. our jeep arrives with a local driver and guide. Another friendly couple, hailing from Hyderabad, join us for a full-day excursion to hopefully catch glimpses of elusive, exotic animals.
Fortunately for us the Bahk's speak excellent English. The 45 minute drive in the dark goes by quickly. At this parks zone entrance we are reminded there is absolutely no talking. The animals are not accustomed to human voices, but are used to the sounds of jeeps. We are to communicate by raps on the jeep, soft whistles, hand movements and facial gestures.
At the last minute, we barter with a local street vendor for the rental of binoculars for the day. This turns out to be the best 9 rupees we spend the entire trip.
Many visitors never see a tiger during safari. We meet several people from India who have trekked up between 5 and 10 times to Corbett Park and still no luck. This is our one day carved out for tiger spotting so we are anxious to see one, but are reminded we'd be lucky just to find scat or tracks.
Who is more curious? Them or us?
Filled with mixed emotions, we set out for the deeper parts of the Park. Soon we are greeted by a group of playful Hanumana Langur monkeys. They are not aggressive towards humans and are eager to show off. Click, click, click...of the camera then on our way again.
To be continued... coming soon to a blog post near you: Part 2 of Tracking a Tiger.
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