WildZests: My Little Jungle Queen

Thursday, May 10, 2012

My Little Jungle Queen

Last year we (Pozu and me) did a trip in April to Pench, Kanha and Tadoba National Parks. It was indeed a memorable trip with my 16-month angel who put up with me for a good 10 days and at the end of it had almost forgotten her mommy. Detailed trip log from that trip can be found here.

This year, I had a trip planned to Bandhavgarh National Park and wanted to spend a full week at just one park rather than hopping through different ones. Everything was okay until we entered into April, that's when plans changed and the trip had to be called off. I had mentally prepared myself for a week of wilderness and hope shined upon us with a 5-day booking slot at Bandipur National Park.

Bandipur JLR is a familiar place for us and I was pretty sure that I could pull off a solo trip with Pozu. Wasting no time, I made the bookings! Since I was traveling alone, I had to pay additional single occupancy charges, but that was okay since their rates are always on twin sharing basis. Then came another surprise when they announced an additional camera fee of INR 500 per DSLR camera per safari. Now, I wasn't really prepared for this and after some dialogue with the JLR guys I was finally relieved when they deferred it to start on May 16, 2012. The camera fees discussion got a lot of negative attention from most folks and emotions were running high, but that's a totally different story and need not be discussed here!

The safaris occupied most of our time during the morning and evening hours and I had non-stop entertainment with Pozu for the rest of the day. She had a gala time throughout the trip and I can see her transforming into a wildlifer soon given all the field knowledge she's absorbing at this young age. Being alone also gave me some good opportunities to photograph her during the walks around the resort. Here's one of my favorite shots from the trip.

My two trusted companions

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