Tiger Sighting in Ranthambore Park, India

JANUARY 17, 2013

One single banyan tree

"Running down the muddy road
A hundred miles from hope
Dangling from a banyan tree
I see a length of rope
Behind me is a tiger
And a killer with a knife
One wants me for supper
And the other wants my life"

- Bayan Tree, by Robert Hunter

Sometimes traveling on someone else’s agenda has its benefits.  For one, I didn’t plan a damn thing.  I hit town with a credit card and an open calendar.  And, there are some things that I would have never sought out on my own that my travel buddy scheduled, like today’s trip to Ranthambor nature preserve to see a tiger in the wild.

The trip started exactly like you would think an Indian faux safari would – with me waiting in line at 5:15 in the morning pushing, shoving and shouting for tickets with two dozen other tourists, guides, and hotel operators trying to lock down spots for their clients.  I felt like a floor trader at the Chicago Board of Trade, just with more chai and b.o. in the air.

 In the park our guide almost immediately heard a noise and stopped the Gypsy (basically an extra long Jeep with two elevated bench seats in the back) to climb up on the roll cage to look into the jungle.  He perched there looking into the wild with an expression on his face with the perfect mix of excitement and stoicism.  A couple kilometers later the guide stopped again to point out some downed brush and ruts in the sand he claimed were drag marks from a “big kill.”  The whole while I was sitting there thinking the look on his face and the drag story were well-rehearsed skits used week after week, much in the same way my parents used to show me Rudolf’s tracks in the snow on Christmas morning after letting the family dog out to leave prints in the snow next to bits of carrot they threw on the back deck. 

There's one in every crowd.

We wandered further on trail, paying little attention to the flora and fauna.  We were looking for a tiger.  Period. 

Despite the focus on getting our cat, we still saw some amazing things like monkeys and peacocks. 

There was an absolutely amazing banyan tree.  Each tree throws out its branches horizontally, then drops limbs vertically.  For trees as old as the one pictured below the vertical branches get big enough to look like whole new trees.  You really have to step back to realize the whole cluster is really one continuous organism. 

At once, our driver heard the call from another up the road and our guide shouted instructions to the buses and gypsies further down trail behind us.   Tiger sighting. 

We whipped down the two-track trail and settled into our spot.  Then she appeared.  Tiger T16.  The subject of more than one documentary.  At only fifty meters away, you need not be a biologist to realize that it was a tiger.  It was really bizarre feeling to see a live version of a creature I had only known in cartoon form.

She remained visible for about a full minute before wandering out of sight.  It was amazing.  

 Note:  All pics from this post were taken by Aliz.  She borrowed my SD memory card, so I wasn't totally useless in the process.