Sketching in Dandeli

We stayed at the Kulgi Nature camp in Dandeli for a little holiday. It's a lovely place to relax and catch up with some sketching. It's really quiet and the calm embraces your flighty soul and tethers it down for a while. We missed a black panther, the staff and tourists tell us. A pity. I would have loved to see that sleek, gorgeous animal.  I find black panthers so mesmerizing. The tourist consoles me with a picture.

This is hornbill territory and I was lucky enough to see one right near our hut. But this was a Malabar Pied Hornbill, not the great Pied Hornbill for which Dandeli is famous. The next day, we joined ranks of tourists in the wee hours of the morning, patiently awaiting our turn for the safari. We spotted some barking deer,  A family of Bisons ( Gaur)  that looked angry and ready to charge, the heftiest one's muscles rippling. I am imagining what it must be like to meet him head on and it's not a pleasant thought! There was a lovely little pond that we stopped at for a while, hoping to see some more inhabitants. But there was scarcely a sound, scarcely a ripple! It felt like they were hiding just behind the dense trees and bushes, grinning to themselves and stifling a laugh, waiting for us to leave. That pond had a layer of mist over it and it was really beautiful to watch it rise slowly,  much like smoke from houses in villages in the early hours of the morning. We are alike, we and the wild, much as we'd like to deny it or change it. All trying to live and survive in a volatile planet that just can't make up its mind whether it wants life on it or not. 

We don't see too many animals, but it is just as well. Let them stay hidden and thrive.