In the morning of our second day we took trucks out to the park and went on a 3 hour nature walk in the park with a local guide. There are no fences or cages, so obviously each walk is different and you can never fully anticipate what you'll see. In addition to the gorgeous landscapes we managed to spot a wild boar, many spotted deer, a wide variety of exotic birds, mating crocodiles, and ultimately a wild rhino. The last two of this list were the rarest and most interesting. Our guide had never seen crocodiles mating in the wild before, but the rhino encounter was the most thrilling. There are quite a few rhinos in the park, but often deeper in, and normally when you spot them it is as a figure off the distance. In our case, we ended up rather closer as we didn't see it until we were almost on top of it. It got a bit aggressive, and we had to stand there quietly for quite awhile until it finally stopped snorting and went back to eating.
We went back to our lodge for lunch, only to discover a python hiding in the bushes of our laneway.
In the afternoon we went back to a different part of the park for a jeep safari. The safari wasn't as fun as the morning walk because there was tall elephant grass on both sides of the trail for long stretches and that, combined with the noise of the jeeps kept us from seeing many animals. We did see more crocodiles and deer, and we did spot a lot more birds and a monitor lizard up a tree.
Deep into our safari we stopped at a crocodiles and turtle breeding compound and got to look at some of the local crocodiles from a bit close vantage.
With the sun starting to set we headed back out of the park, rowed back across the river and got picked up and taken back to our lodge. As I was readying for bed a soft chirping alerted me to the last animal of the day - a gecko sharing my room for the night.
1 comment:
Great picture of the rhino! We had lots of geckos every night in Nicaragua, but I never managed to get a picture anywhere near as good as yours.
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