The Passionate Traveler

Spotted deer. All my photos The star of the Indian wildlife reserves must be Ranthambore. This is a massive area of some 392  square km and it is a great place to look for Tigers. This was my third trip to look for wild Tigers, so, hopefully, 3rd time lucky. My first attempt to see wild Tigers was in Chitwan National Park in Nepal and the second effort was Jim Corbett Reserve in India. Came close in both reserves, but just saw beautiful tiger tracks. Ranthambore is close to the town of Sawai Madhopur in Rajastan. Apart from the main attraction - the tigers - Ranthambore is also a famous heritage site with various ruins within the boundaries of the reserve. Local gathering wood outside the reserve Tiger painting at the train station My trip started with a hotel close to one of the railway stations in Delhi. All of my previous trips to India, I was doing consulting for companies in India, and I had only been accommodated in top of the range hotels, so this was my fi...

Wild Hyacinth Macaw Woodpecker - one of the many birds seen The Pantanal is a massive wetland area in Southern Brazil. It covers some 190 000 square kilometres and much of it (about 80%) is flooded during the wet season. Most of the animals which can be found in the Amazon basin can also be found in the Pantanal, but they are generally a bit easier to see in the Pantanal as there is a lot of open spaces. Much of the dry land in the Pantanal is actually farm land with bits of indigenous forest. The Pantanal is  also one of the best places on the planet to see jaguars in their natural habitat. Looking for Jaguars in the Pantanals have become high on the wish list of the affluent Eco-travels and is currently "the trip to do" . This has made trips to see the Jaguars really ridiculously expensive. I managed to find a much more reasonable trip after spending many hours on the Internet! If you look hard enough you will find what you are looking for! After doing some work...

One of the icon images of Nepal. Large Buddhist stupa in Khatmandu I have been a bit carried away with the wildlife posts recently. I just love the bush and there are quite a few more bush posts to come. I love taking wildlife photos and I guess that one of my main ideas with this blog is to shear photos and travel experiences with you. So now for something completely different - Nepal. I have been to Nepal twice - both times to attend a congress. The first trip was before the earthquake and the second was after the earthquake. I will do a post on the before and after at a later stage. The earthquake struck Nepal in April 2015, killing some 8964 people and injuring nearly 22000. An estimated 3.5 million people were left homeless. The quake was a 8.1 magnitude  quake and caused wide spread destruction. Many of the wonderful unique structures, including many UNESCO world heritage sites, in Nepal were destroyed. Mountains from the airport The first thing that comes to mi...

The Wink  After doing my posts on Erindi, I mentioned that one of my favourite places is the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (the old Gemsbok National Park). I just love it there. My wife and I have done a few trips there which will make the basis of a few other posts. Some very interesting stories to tell!  During our various visits we have taken quite a few photos. Both of us, my wife (Marie) and I are  keen photographers and the Kgalagadi is a great place for photos. Of course the star of the show is the many lions which can be seen there, but there is also an amazing diversity of other wildlife, including insects, and smaller mammals like mice and African Blackfooted cat.  There was a photographic competition a few years ago arranged by the Parks Board where photos taken in any of the six arid parks could be entered. These arid parks included Kgalagadi, Augrabies and Namaqualand. Marie and I both entered the competition and we did quite well! We had a few ph...

Wild dog playing with pup In this 4th post on my wonderful trip to Erindi, I will show some of my photos of the wild dogs. These are the most effective predators in the bush, although the way that they kill the animal they are hunting is pretty bad. But I guess that it is nature. They can outrun any prey animal and they always hunt in a pack. There are not too many places left in the world where wild dogs can still be seen. They need a very large track of land if they are to be re-introduced into the wild. They also take a lot of game animals, so they are not very popular on private game reserves. I have seen them before in the Kruger National park, but only once in about 30 or so trips there. Not a common animal to see at all. Pup in the den At Erindi, there is a pack of wild dogs. They have made their den not very far from the main lodge and waterhole. In fact, with a good pair of binoculars you could see the den from the deck of the main lodge. Because they are such sp...