Tadoba – Pench

As mentioned there are no Safaris any more, so we could leave to go to the water body after a leisurely breakfast.

It took us about a 45 minute drive through rural countryside.

On the way we saw a Hoopoe on a tree top and a black-winged kite a little further down the road.

We soon reached the water body, we had a short walk through a small and tidy village to get to the water. Most of the migratory birds had already left but some of the locals were hanging around.

Of the locals the bronze-winged Jacana and the pheasant-tail Jacana were two of my favorites. The pheasant-tail had such a sweet and beautiful face.

We left to go back to the lodge, finish packing, have lunch, and move on to Pench.

Fortunately we didn’t have to endure yet another boring and bland thali lunch. A special thank you to Mr. Megnath Ghosh, the resident food manager for the great lunch.

The Manager never left his office, which is quite unusual in these forest lodges. In some of them the entire staff come out to bid departing guests a “Happy Journey”.

All in all it was mostly disappointing, looking forward to Pench.

After about a three hour drive we arrived at the Pench Jungle Camp. The first encouraging sign was a well kept lawn with tables set up for snacks and drinks.

We were welcomed and shown to our “tent” by Vishal, a nice energetic young person. As it turns out he is a trained naturalist and will be accompanying us.

We freshened up and appeared for the snacks and drinks as instructed and there we met the manager Mr. Ajit Ghale, his charming wife and their 4 well behaved and friendly German Shepherds. Everyone seems to be friendly, helpful and go out of their way to make us feel at home. This is such a welcome change and typical of a great forest lodge.

There were also two large guinea fowls roaming around. One of the naturalists had run over their mother with his Jeep when these two were very young. Apparently he had picked them up and hand fed them until they were mature enough to be on their own. All in all, it was so wonderful to sit outside and take everything in.

At dinner we were served excellent food with variety and Mr. Ghale came in to check that everything was going all right with his guests.

Retired early for the night in anticipation of tomorrow’s Safari.