Awoken early at six in the morning in a dormitory deep in the forest sweating in a sleeping bag in the early morning Indian heat. Itching legs from the jungle mosquitos that feasted on me the night before. I awoke with mixed feelings of excitement and fear of the unknown. Today is the first day of the elephant census 2010 which is carried out every five years at Nagarhole National Park in Karnataka, India. On the agenda today: the block count; splitting into groups of 5 with 2 guides and trekking through the forest in a zig-zag pattern and making a note of any elephants that you encounter along the path. They must be ahead of you, basically, if you have to turn your head more than 90 degrees it can't be included, it simply wasn't there in regard to the census.
We split into our allotted groups. The instructions had been given the previous evening in Kannada of how the spotting was to be carried out and what was to happen if any animals attacked. I don't understand or speak a word of Kannada so I was heading into a moist, deciduous forest inhabited by hundreds of wild elephants, over 70 tigers and a multitude of snakes with no idea what to do if i came face to face with one; LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN!!
Carrying only a ruck-sack with my camera, a rain jacket, food and water i headed in with my group. First port of call was finding a stick to beat the ground with to fend off snakes. I had heard some horror stories the night before. Snakes are very shy creatures, though if shocked they will attack so I figured if I stamp and hit the ground with the stick no snakes will come near. The guides led the way armed with a large gun and sword/knife-like device and the first 2/3 kms of the trek were very pleasant. An early morning breeze, the birds of India chirping in the beautiful teak trees and I couldn't believe how lucky I was to be given this opportunity. People wait years to participate in censuses and send countless applications and this opportunity just fell on my doorstep, truly blessed.
We stopped by a hill over a peaceful stream for breakfast and a well-earned rest. Breakfast consisted of curried rice wrapped in leaves that had been stapled together to make a packet. Along with the luke-warm water it was just what we needed after all the walking. I could have lay there forever though continue we must. There were elephants just waiting to be spotted, we just had to find them.
The terrain we were trekking through got considerably rougher and we were bent-double thrashing our way through thorn-bushes and crossing muddy streams. At this point I was very thankful for my trusted stick I'd chosen at the start of the day. It was reaching 11 o'clock and we still hadn't seen any wild animals. Many indian birds, a few large squirrels, a tiger's paw print and many beautiful butterflies, but no elephants and I was fearful we would head back to the dorm with an empty sheet. We reached a plateau and stopped under the shade of a large teak tree for a rest.
After a short fifteen minute break we walked ahead and couldn't believe our eyes when ahead of us stood a pack of at least twelve large bison, magnificent large black creatures. The leader of the pack looked at us and we remained still and silent scared to breathe. It moved its horns to the left and took off and the others dutifully followed with a magnificent sound of hooves hitting the hard soil and leaves rustling noisily and in the space of ten seconds they were gone. We stayed painfully quiet for a few moments then proceeded forwards.
We took a sharp right and proceeded to cross a small bridge over a stream. Crossing the bridge we turned left and stopped sharp in our tracks, about 20 meters directly ahead of us stood a large male elephant looking directly at us. The request was barked by the guide in Kannada to RUN. In the Indian mid-afternoon sun after trekking through terrain for about 15 kms I ran like I've never ran before, in my head I thought this may be it, wondering how long it takes for an elephant to kill you, if it's instantaneous or if they slowly torment you and kill you. I turned my head, not sure if I would see an angry elephant charging in my direction, but thankfully he had decided to spare us. We decided to slowly creep back round and have a look and we spotted a herd of 5 elephants, this time to the right after the bridge: 3 large males, 1 female and a calf. Despite my shaking hands I managed to take a few photographs. I was standing on a large mound of grass by the stream shooting photos of the elephants when the same large male we'd encountered before came from between the trees. In the height of mating season it was evident that this was a roudy elephant with a broken tusk and a cut nail. The female elephant was more enticing to him than me and my fellow humans and after a few angry looks in our direction he joined the rest of the herd.
As the group were filling in the census sheet I was watching a blue butterflies lazy dance on the stream and was mixed with emotions of elation at seeing such wild animals in their natural habitat whilst on-foot and a strong desire to be back in my house in Scotland were imminent threats of charging elephants were not present.
The last hour had been very eventful so we decided to have lunch by a dirty lake and gather ourselves again, though not before spotting another male elephant in the far-off distance. We were all very tired by this point and with another 5 hours before the sun went down we had to head off and make our way out of the thick of the forest. The trek back was the same similar tricky terrain as before with thorn bushes. Bent-double in the bushes thrashing my way through i couldn't help but notice a surprising amount of elephant dung and thought if an elephant came then there would be no way i could run, i would just have to stand my ground and pray it was a mock-charge.
As we were trekking i noticed the guards were going a lot slower than previously and looking around aimlessly though still remained calm. I asked around to find out if we were lost as everyone was speaking in Kannada and I was reassured that we were not lost, though I could tell from the body-language of all involved that we most definitely were. In small mercies at that moment the skies opened and lovely cool rain fell and mixed with the residue in our clothes and hair, already damp with sweat from the heat. We took shelter under a tree and worked out how to get back as the sun was setting so that must be the west and looked for tree markings. After another hour or so we reached a plateau and we could hear a vehicle pass and we knew we were right beside the road. The sound of the car going past was sweet music to our ears and the feeling of finding our way again made up for being lost in the first place. When we got back to the road it was a great feeling knowing we'd made it.
We got back to the dormitory and exchanged stories with the other groups over some old monk, chapatis, rice and rasam. Was a day I'll never forget - such a great experience to be on-foot in the forest trekking with such beautiful nature around and the feeling of the unknown is unbelievable.
Early to bed. Tomorrow is dung day; counting, measuring and testing the freshness of elephant dung - IT'S A DUNG DEAL!!!
