Tiger Safari in Ranthambore, India
/We arrived in Ranthambore in the evening, unsure of what to expect for the following days. Anil, upon seeing our initial itinerary which had only one drive, told us we absolutely needed to add at least one, but preferably two additional drives to increase our chances of seeing a tiger. Even with these two more drives, he made sure to let us know we shouldn't expect to see anything, as tiger sightings are incredibly rare.
We woke up early the next day for our first drive. We were picked up at our hotel around 6:30 am, and spent about three hours driving through the beautiful Ranthambore National Park. The park is split up into different zones, with each zone allowing only a limited number of jeeps on it per day. This helps to limit the traffic through the park, and for us on our first day it also meant we hardly saw anyone else in the park. We didn't see any tigers on our first drive, but we did see loads of Langur monkeys, Sambar deer, spotted deer, and peacocks. When we arrived back at our hotel for a quick lunch break, we heard through the grapevine that no other groups that morning had seen any tigers either.
We headed back out in the afternoon for our second drive. We were in a different zone this afternoon, and we were riding with three Indian guys. They said they come out about once a month, and have been for several years. They told us all about the tiger they saw the previous night and we were feeling like with their luck we would definitely see one. This zone was beautiful, but after about three hours of driving around, we began heading back to the hotel. On the main road, just a few hundred meters from the main gate, we spotted a large female tiger on the other side of the river, about one hundred yards from our jeep. She didn't linger very long but it was really amazing to see such a magnificent animal.
Feeling really lucky about our second drive, and having accomplished what we set out to do in Ranthambore, our third drive had a bit more of a relaxed feel than the other two. We were back in the first zone we drove through the first morning, and our guide told us there hadn't been any tiger sightings in the zone for two weeks, so our hopes weren't high. We saw loads of fresh tracks throughout the drive though which meant we were nearby, and we heard some animals giving warning calls that they sensed predators. Again, we spent nearly all of our 3 and a half hours tracking down the prints with no luck. Our guide told us we'd take one more quick loop, but then we had to head back to the hotel.
During this last loop we really lucked out. A mother tiger and three of her nearly mature cubs (about 13-14 months old)! They hung out by our jeep for about 20 minutes, the cubs playing with each other and the mother keeping a very watchful eye on us. It was a once in a lifetime experience. Samantha was able to capture some really incredible pictures too. After this really amazing morning, we headed back to the hotel and then drove on towards Jaipur where we would spend our next couple of nights.
