Photoshoots at Periyar!

This past weekend, Shaelagh and I went to Thekkady to visit the Periyar Tiger Sanctuary. Overall, the trip was a blast! We left early Saturday morning for Thekkady and were driven by Mubarak who is one of the FIMRC drivers. We got to Thekkady around 12:30 and headed to the home-stay we were staying the night at to drop off our bags. After stopping for lunch, we headed to Periyar Tiger Sanctuary to go on a boat safari on one of the large lakes in the reserve. The boat safari basically consisted of us wearing ridiculously large life jackets and slowly cruising around the lake while we saw some wildlife from very far away. It would have been a smart idea to bring binoculars, but we didn't think that far ahead in our planning. We saw red mongoose, indian gore, sambar deer, peacocks and a lot of other birds. We also happened to meet a couple from outside of Chicago. It was pretty weird to talk to other Americans. The boat safari wasn't too exciting but it was nice and relaxing. Next, we headed to a place outside the park to ride an elephant. I have to admit it was pretty touristy, but the riding an elephant was a lot of fun! Shaelagh and I had been looking forward to this for a while and were so excited when we pulled up and saw all of the elephants.

Elephants waiting for their passengers.

Riding an elephant! The ride operators thought they were pretty clever for giving us the white elephant...

After finishing our elephant ride, we headed to dinner and then back to our room. We headed to sleep early because we had to wake up at 4:30 am the next day to go on our jeep safari. After rallying out of bed, we were picked up by our jeep at 5 am. We headed for Periyar and got there before 6 am. Our driver seemed to be quite the experienced safari-er, as he drove while standing outside the jeep looking for animals.

Don't try this at home.

We saw black monkeys, more Indian gore, as well as elephants from very far away. Around 7:30, we arrived at the location where we would start our trek. After a large breakfast, we headed out trekking with our personal guide, Rajid. He was so funny and really nice. He hiked through the grasslands for a while before descending into the jungle. We had a lot fun as waded through streams, played in waterfalls and spotted various animals along the way.

The landscape of Periyar.

A waterfall we crossed during our trek.

The view over the edge of the falls.

A green wine snake we spotted during our trek.

Unfortunately, we didn't see any elephants or tigers during our trek. However, such sightings are quite rare and we really enjoyed the trek regardless! After about three hours of trekking we returned to our starting point for lunch. After lunch we headed out in a row boat with our guide to a another waterfall. Rajid decided to make Shaelagh and I pose for entire photo shoot at the falls that resulted in us getting completely soaked.

One of the many pictures Rajid took.

After returning from the falls, Shaelagh and I met back up with our jeep driver. We were lucky enough to see some more wildlife on our way out of the park. The most exciting spotting was of two elephants that were much closer to us than in the morning. 

Spotted: Wild elephants!

After watching the elephants for a while, we left Periyar and headed back to Thekkady to meet Mubarak. The drive to Thekkady was actually a lot of fun as our driver did not seem to shy away from driving fast. Unlike in the morning, we could actually see the landscape passing by and the drive was akin to a very scenic roller coaster ride. Shaelagh and I both wished we could have stayed in Thekkady longer. However, we had to drive back to prepare for work on Monday. 

I hope everyone is having a spirited Fourth of July! I am definitely missing being home today more than ever. I've never been prouder to be an American. This experience has definitely taught me to not take living in the US for granted!

God bless America!

Liz