Ranthambore

Accompanied by a naturalist and in an open jeep we braved an afternoon drive through the Ranthambore National Park to look for wildlife. The main attraction to see is a tiger in the wild, but only 30% of visitors see one and we weren’t in the 30%. To find the tigers, the guide listens for an alarm call that the monkeys give out to warn the deer when there is a tiger nearby. When we heard it, we rushed in the jeep towards the spot. One time we could watch the monkey in the tree giving the call, so we knew the tiger was there somewhere, but we couldn’t see it. Incidentally our tour guide told us stories (afterwards) of people (including himself) having close calls with tigers in National Parks; all had a happy ending, but were a little scary.
We also looked out for leopards, but they are much harder to see. We did see summer and spotted deer (also known as tiger food) monkeys, birds, crocodiles as well as interesting plant life.
I’ll have to come back to India to see a tiger!