First and foremost, Happy New Year! If the way I spent the first day of 2011 is any indication of what to expect for the rest of the year, I have nothing to worry about!
We woke up at the crack of dawn today of course, for a jeep safari in the jungle! It was freezing, but it was beautiful and our group was lucky enough to spot plenty of animals including spotted deer, peacocks,
samber deer, langurs and wild dogs!
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| They seemed cool at the time. Gimme a break. |
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| Monkehhh. |
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| Badass wild dog. |
Apparently another jeep saw a wild elephant, which I wish we had gotten the opportunity of seeing, but you win some, you lose some. Along the way, we saw some elephant crossing signs, which I thought were adorable.
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| Beware of elephants! |
One thing that I noticed was how quiet the resort was. Dr. Anand and Dr. Ellstrand mentioned that they only have a set number of rooms that you have to book months and months in advance. Even though the resort is so wildly popular, there are no plans to expand because preservation of the jungle again, is more important to them, than profits. I absolutely love that the Indian people seem to have their priorities in the right place – it’s such a refreshing thought!
After our safari, we returned for breakfast, and played cards around our rooms.
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| Indian breakfast...was...interesting. |
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| "Around our rooms". Yeah. Our resort was this bamf. |
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| Got tired of playing cards...and so Jarred recreated the Taj Mahal. |
A lot of the group took naps, as did I, and before we knew it, it was lunch time! More hanging out and exploring the resort area after that, and we went for a river boat safari at around 5:00pm.
We had a really fun time and saw a LOT of birds, which Dr. Ellstrand definitely enjoyed!
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| The other boat! |
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| Birds. |
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More birds. |
The highlight of the trip was seeing a wild elephant bathing in the river. Though we rode on elephants two days ago, seeing one in the wild is a completely different experience.
It was so majestic and calm and a wonderful sight to behold.
To think that people, to this day, still poach beautiful animals like this makes me sad. I can guarantee that ivory looks a lot better on an elephant than on a mantelpiece. Hmm. In any case, we got to watch a beautiful sunset as we headed back.
After the safari, we got off the boats into a grassy area, and I got bitten by some insects! Couldn't tell if they were ants or baby spiders, but it hurt so much! Ick! My foot’s pretty swollen now, but I can still walk, so I suppose I’ll need to monitor it and make sure it doesn't get any worse.
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