Okay, well, maybe not the bears. Aaaand fine, not the lions, either. BUT, I continue to consider myself one incredibly lucky person because this afternoon, while driving through the Indian jungle, I saw a tiger.
Let me repeat: I. Saw. A. Real. In-the-wild. Tiger. Tiger. TIGER!
Right now I'm in Dadeldi, still in the state of Karnataka. Three friends and myself made it up here yesterday on our way toward Goa so we could stop at a wildlife reserve for a day or two in hopes of seeing some animals. Definitely some monkeys. Most likely some bison. Possibly a sloth. And most likely NOT a black panther, leopard, or tiger.
We spent our morning today shopping around for a good jeep safari tour and settled on one for early tomorrow morning (by far the best deal in town!!). So, with an afternoon to spare, we headed to the local bus station to see if we couldn't just hop on a bus somewhere for the afternoon. Turns out our options were limited, but we did end up paying $3 each for a 64km round-trip in an auto rickshaw out to some special rock in the river. (Turns out, though it's an incredibly beautiful spot, the actual attraction is some rocks that create a mini waterfall where, if one--human and animal alike--meets an unlucky fate and slips down the rocks, they will be pushed down under these rocks and churned and churned for three days before surfacing. Thirteen people have died in this spot; the 13th only a few days ago and witnessed by our rickshaw driver. So tragic.)
Anyways.
We saw the sights, took some photos, and headed back. We were all in the middle of conversation when I saw something up ahead. An animal. But, it's not unusual--it's really rather common, in fact--to see animals all over the roads here. Cows, dogs, goats, they all spend ample time in the streets in India. So, you might understand why it took my brain (as well as my friends' brains) a few seconds to register that this animal up ahead was no cow or goat, but a large feline. We all reacted almost at once, the driver included, shouting out sounds that I really have no recollection of due to my immense excitement. We watched it cross the road, but when we got to the same place it had already disappeared into the forest.
The funny part was... You know how they do experiments to demonstrate how we see what we want to see, or our attention to detail is really quite crap if we'd ever have to describe a suspect? Well, we all saw something a bit different. We were all certain that it was a large feline. That much was obvious, given that unmistakable cat-like walk and long, thick tail waving in the air behind it. Between four of us, though, we saw spots on the body and stripes on the tail. We saw a light-colored coat AND a dark-colored coat. We saw a small leopard-sized head, or no head at all. And all of these amazing details came out of our mouths all at once, once the initial shock was gone. It took about ten minutes to clarify with our driver/guide that it was indeed a tiger... An animal that this young man had only seen twice--TWICE--before in his entire life.
Apparently there are about 87 leopards in the area, 27 black panthers and, according again to our guide today, ELEVEN tigers in this area. If he's correct, then we saw one of ELEVEN tigers out here.
Yes, allow me to repeat the one thing I have said oh so many times in my recent years: I am one damned lucky woman.
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