Day Six

 I woke at 5:45 and the first thing that struck my mind was "why didn’t I wait a little longer!?". I walked out to the track and then cursed myself even more for some time.

There was a perfect pugmark in the middle of the track

There before me, and straight down the center of the track, was a perfect set of pugmarks belonging to a very large tigress. We sat and brooded over our stupidity for a while until it was time to go for the trek. These pugmarks brought a strange fact to our notice. When we informed the forest guards of these pugmarks, they made a note in the diary but took no tracings of these perfect specimens. When asked why, we were informed that this track right outside our door actually came under the surveillance area of the beat from Mohan, which was located many miles away. We headed off on our trek this time with Chhimbal and Hira Lal. We were going to cover the area between Gairal and Sarapduli for the first time.

The first interesting area we came upon was crocodile pool. This was the first time I was seeing it from a few feet away, instead of peering down at it from high above on the hillside. We crept up to it very carefully as the crocs are extremely shy and dive into the pool at the sight of even the slightest movement. We caught sight of a couple of them but they too slipped into the water. We carried on another 100 yards and then crossed through water that came up to our thighs. I wondered how long it would take for the huge resident crocs to get to us from the pool. Definitely lesser time than it would take us to stumble across the rocky riverbed. As we rounded the next bend in the river, we all froze in our tracks as Hira Lal held up his hand.

Looking up at the Crocodile Pool viewing point

Around 500 yards ahead of us stood this huge tusker who had already sensed our presence! Chhimbal decided not to take chances and made us climb up the hillside to the main vehicle track. He also loaded his rifle, which we had for the first time with us on any of our treks, to scare off the animal by firing in the air if required. After having crossed the area where the tusker was, we descended back down the hillside to the riverbed below. We turned back just short of Sarapduli and returned along the opposite bank of the river this time. All our senses were on full alert as we silently made our way past the area the tusker was in. On approaching Crocodile Pool once again, we saw a few tourists standing at the usual viewing spot above. One could almost see the horror on all their faces as they saw us enter the water to cross over. The amazing thing about that trek was that we did not, for the first time, come across even one set of pugmarks that had been made the previous night. One very vivid memory left behind from that trek was the amazing scent from the soaked tall grass all along the riverbed.

The afternoon passed with the usual replenishing and recuperation. Amazingly, the flies and ants that had been infesting many areas had just vanished without a trace after last night’s rain. One could actually bathe without flicking off ants every few seconds. It drizzled for a while and it was amazing to actually be feeling cold on a mid summer afternoon. The weather was so beautiful that we pulled out our sleeping bags and had a short afternoon siesta on the balcony. I was woken from my nap by the slightly distant sound of a rock moving down at the riverbed. I listened for the sound to repeat itself but nothing happened. Sanjay had also woken up. I told him what I thought I’d heard. We decided I must have been dreaming. That evening we decided to take a short drive within the neighbouring area. As we got down to the riverbed, I suddenly remembered the sound I thought I’d heard. Looking around, the first thing we spotted was the huge makhna to the left and around 200 yards up the dry rainwater stream. We sat and watched him a while and then drove on. As we were halfway through our circuit, the wind really picked up and we got a good feeling of how suddenly the appearance of a jungle can change with the weather. We headed back. Saw the elephant again, who was closer than before, and then returned to Gairal.