We met Manooj at 9 and hurried into the wildlife preserve, eager o see what nature would offer. The preserve is a huge and busy place.. not the idyllic isolate spot that I’d imagined. We got tickets for a 2 hour boat cruise and climbed aboard. Frankly, the cruise was a bit of a disappointment.. the boat was full of expatriate Indians with their families. There was  so much talking that it was hard to hear anything. The wildlife take during our run was pretty low.  We saw a kingfisher. A large buck dear, a  wild pig and some big water birds.. An earlier group had spotted elephants.. but no such luck for us. 

Here’s a beautiful Kingfisher

Here is a large deer of some sort

We saw many of these big birds that acted like a cross between a Loon and an Eagle . We called them ‘legals’ :

We also saw a wild pig of some sort.

The boat ride was too noisy, too crowded and too slow.. that said.. it did have nice if unexciting scenery. Diane, Gabe and I hung out in the back and made up our own commentary… “look.. there’s another rock !” ..  

We were pretty happy to be back on shore.. We felt like telling all the folks waiting to take the boat to do something else instead.

The parking lot was full of white monkeys when we got back. There were 10 or so of them hanging around the loading dock. We never get tired of watching them. They are so clever and funny… finding, begging, stealing food. I’m not sure they have the best diet..

We met up with Manooj and tried to figure out what was next. We talked ourselves into taking a short trek in the woods.. We knew that midday would not be a great time to see animals, but we wanted a more outdoorsy experience than the crowded boat… So we went inside and hired a guide.. Inside wee finally got a glimpse of a tiger.. albeit on a poster ?

Our guide, Raju, first helped us slither into ‘leech socks’ to keep the suckers at bay..

We then boarded a rope towed bamboo raft to cross over an arm of the lake  to the trekking path.  Gabe helped pull us across while we waved goodbye to Manooj. The raft was the best part of the Peryar experience. It was so cool.. I felt like Charon in the underworld.. or like something from the Mists of Avalon.

The trek was beutiful and peacful.. not much in the way of animals to see.. We did see some large black monkey’s (about 50 pounds each) ..

Raju also found some lumps of frankincense .. which is hardened sap from a tree.. A bit later, we found a tree of it. Raju lit it for a few minutes so we could smell it. It smelt exactly like a Catholic Church.

About that point the leech attack began.. Gabe and Diane noice that their shooes were literrly crowling with leeches. They both stayed pretty calm as Raju coated our feet with salt and tobacco powder to keep the leeches away. No one in our family likes leeches.. Raju gave Gabe a stick to knock them off from time to time.. but warned tat they might climb up the stick. From that time on it was harder for us to look at the stuff in the forest.

Leeeches aside, we did see some cool stuff. We saw some really beautiful and massive old white ceders. They were so huge and tall it made us feel like ants .. or leeches.. did I tell you about the leeches ? 

We also found a very cool porcupine quill. It was as big around as a darning needl and as sharp as a needle. We carried it for the whole trip…

We also saw termites.. Raju didn’t believe that we’d eaten termites in Costa Rica.. though he didn’t feel like trying them himself.

We saw a huge wasps nest.. luckily no wasps

We eventually got out of the forest to the edge of the lake. No more leeches.. (did I mention the leeches ? )   We had a really pleasant walk along the lake edge looking for animals.. The best we got was this sign of a recent elephant  visit…  Hey.. not much.. but you take what you can get… It was better than leeches.. (did I already talk about the leeches ? )

Oh.. wait.. we did see some wildlife on the lake trail.. we found this little grog who had really interesting light and dark camouflage that made him almost invisible. He was pretty tiny.. about 3 leech lengths long..

We made our way back to the raft and crossed back to the dock. We started to take our leech socks off when we noticed that Diane’s was covered with blood (!).. One of the leeches (did I tell you that there were leeches ? ) had managed to burrow through her leggings.. She was bleeding pretty freely from the tiny hole.. Raju fixed her up with a bit of newspaper.. It was an adventure !

As we walked back up in the parking lot an Indian woman I’d seen at breakfast came and snatched the porcupine quill from my hand without asking  and threw it away.. she told us that if we kept it in our house, our family would quarrel. It was pretty funny.. I suppose I should be grateful for the warning.. I don’t think I could have taken the quill through customs anyway.  We spent a few minutes looking at the monekys.. and a wild pig that was walking around looking for stuff to eat.

Then we headed back to the hotel for some leech-free relaxation.. Just after we got back to the hotel I got the call that a guy had been able to bring my camera charger the 4 hours from Munnar.. he was a driver like Manooj who was bringing some travelers anyway. I went down to thank him. His name was Anil.. and he was such a nice guy. I thanked him a million times and we talked for awhile..  Like everybody here, he genuinely likes helping people.. I gave him some money for the bother anyway.. I was happy to have my charger again..