Our backpacking trip: Dia 282 / Day 282

Hoy estuvimos con Jack y Meline en el Parque Nacional Bardyia. Jack hace tours guiados en el parque. Empezamos a caminar a las 7:15am, cruzando rios y caminando por selva bastande densa llegamos al rio principal, donde Jack dijo que habia la posibilidad de ver rinocerontes. Habia pasado un poco mas de una hora cuando nos encontramos con un par de rinocerontes, mama y su hijo de mas o menos 2 años. Estabamos a menos de 30 metros de ellos. Estuvimos viendolos por un rato hasta que Jack dijo que nos alejaramos porque ella se estaba poniendo brava. Son unos animales bastante grandes y saber que pueden correr a una velocidad de 80Km por hora siempre lo pone a uno a pensar el estar tan cerca de ellos.

El resto del dia lo pasamos caminando en el parque y viendo otros animales, pero el objetivo principal era ver el tigre de bengala. Estuvimos en un sitio por casi 4 horas pues ya lo habian visto un par de veces temprano en la mañana, asi que era muy posible que volviera a salir en el mismo sitio. El tigre es un animal territorial y generalmente se mantiene en el mismo sitio. Cambiamos de lugar por un rato buscando poder verlo, pero no salio. Volvimos al sitio donde estuvimos inicialmente y cuando llegamos vimos que todo el mundo estaba reunido en un mismo punto… claro, ahi era donde se podia ver este hermoso animal. Habia que usar binoculares para apreciar la magnitud de este animal. Estaba sentado placentera y tranquilamente a la orilla del rio. No parece tener hambre porque nos venados que estan muy cerca de el no parecen importarle mucho. Aunque fue muy poco tiempo, pero es un gran privilegio haber visto este hermoso animal que desafortunadamente esta en via de extincion.

Despues de haber caminado 23Km regresamos el hotel bastante cansados, comimos y nos acostamos.

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Today we went for a jungle walk with Jack and Meline in the Bardyia National Park. Jack is a certified tour guide so he offered his services. We started walking at 7:15am, cossing small rivers and walking through a very dense jungle we arrived to the main river. Jack told us to be very alert because there was a great opportunity to see rhinoceros in this area. Around half hour later, we ran into a couple of rhinoceros, mom and a 2 year-old baby. They were eating peacefully and we walked into their path, we were at around 30 meters away from them… it was an excellent view. We looked at them eating for a while until the mom started to give us signs that she was upset so Jack advised us to walk away. These are beautiful and big animals and knowing that they can run up to 80Km per hour it is frightening to be that close from them.

The rest of the day we spent it walking in the park and watching other animals, but the main objective was to see the bengal tiger. We spent 4 hours waiting in a place where a tiger came out earlier in the morning and it was very possible to see it again in the same spot. We changed spots for a while trying to get a different view of the same spot or see if we could see it somewhere else, but we did not see it. We returned to the site we waited in the morning and we saw everybody in one spot… of course, this is the spot where we could see this beautiful animal. The tiger was sitting by the riverside and looked very calm and tranquil. It seems not to be hungry because there are several deers close by and it seems not to care. It was a short time, something scared him and went back into the jungle; however it was a privilege to see this magnificent animal which is an endanger species.

After walking around 23Km we came back to the hotel very tired, we had dinner and went to bed.