NEPAL (IV): Rhino watching elephant safari (Chitwan National Park)

From our hotel accommodation in the Thamel neighborhood (Kathmandu) we travel to Sauraha, at a distance of 165 km. by bumpy roads, constant curves and a chaotic and incomprehensibly safe traffic. The average speed of the trip did not exceed 40 km / h, but it was worth investing those almost five hours (including a half-hour half-hour self-service lunch) to travel the distance just for having had the experience of witnessing how to group the rural population along the circulatory routes, how it lives in shanties, in harmony with other animal species, with the minimum and necessary to subsist with dignity and apparently conform.
All kinds of animals in the middle of the road, dogs, sacred cows, chickens, lying down or circulating among cars, all alive. How much contrast!

Sauraha is a population that is located within the Park next to the Rapti River, a small residential and commercial nucleus with rural dissemination, full of shops, lights and colors. The five Nepalese elements are aerated at all corners. At night it seems Christmas, all the houses are dressed with intermittent colors. It is full of grocery stores, books, local souvenirs, cultural activities venues, restaurants and complexes of lodges or bungalows oriented to the tourism of the Park.

The Park is the oldest in Nepal, was declared in 1973 and is a World Heritage Site by Unesco. It is located in the lowlands of Nepal, in the subtropical Terai region, between the rivers Narayani (Gandaki) and Rapti, to the north, and the river Reu and the Indian border, to the south.
There live recorded 68 species of mammals, 544 of birds, 56 of herpetofauna and 126 of fish.
The notoriety and the merit of the Park lies in the protection of the Indian rhinoceros, the bengal tiger and the gharial crocodile.

Here we are going to develop three activities and share them in wikiloc, not because of the technical layout itself or because of the difficulty, but because of the enormous biodiversity value of the Chitwan National Park.

The three activities are:

- This elephant ride through the jungle, motivated by the sighting of the rhino. Some peeked through the branches, they seemed to suck, but none clear before the eyes.
- A canoe ride on the Rapti River (http://es.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=12019528).
- A walk through the jungle (http://es.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=12087083).

We have qualified the route as only for experts because it is essential to do it with an official driver, with traffic control, and because of the risk of a wild habitat.
Our driver was expert. At just thirty years old, he told us he was twelve with this twenty-five-year-old Asian elephant that we rode. I only used to drive 8-10 hours a day. The training is usually done by a different person. Elephants are owned by Indian and Nepalese entrepreneurs but not by local workers.

To the base camp we arrived by car in a few minutes from our accommodation in Sauraha, the Tiger Camp, next to the Rapti River. Take the main avenue north, as if going back to Kathmandu, and in 1.2 km turn left on the Community Forest Road. Traveling the same distance without deviating we will arrive to the reciento.

We climbed the elephant by wooden stairs and mounted on it, sitting on a wooden platform with a railing, feet hanging.
The rattling of the animal prevented us from obtaining better quality images of the environment, we do not manage to transmit the environmental conditions of this ecosystem full of wild life, exuberant and vulnerable at the same time. All a survivor of the anthropic footprint.

We crossed the Khageri Khola twice. In both we saw crocodiles 30 meters away. On this river was the Indian crocodile, unlike the Rapti River that we saw more gavial.
We also saw speckled deer, peacocks, many birds and two caravans of women on foot transporting cargo in the middle of the jungle. It is your way of life.

Some of the animal species that we can see are:

- Asian elephant (asian elephant)
- Indian rhinoceros (one-horned rhinoceros)
- gaur
- gavial crocodile (gharial crocodile)
- Indian crocodile (mugger crocodile)
- python (python)
- leopard (leaopard)
- Bengal tiger (royal bengal tiger)
- striped hyaena (striped hyaena)
- jackal
- chital or speckled deer (spotted deer),
- sloth bear
- Indian langur (common langur)
-pangolin indian (indian pangolin)
- black stork
- little egret (little egret),
- ibis white (white ibis)
- peacock (peacock)
- Parrot (parrot)
- bicorn hornbill (great pied hornbill)
- melanochlora sultanea (sultan tit)

I hope you like it.
GOOD WAY !!!


*** RELATED ROUTES:
- NEPAL (II): Canoeing trip - Rapti River (Chitwan National Park)
http://es.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=12019528
- NEPAL (III): Jungle trek (Chitwan National Park)
http://es.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=12087083
- NEPAL (V): Sauraha-Lalitpur (Patan Durbar Sq.)
http://es.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=12439656

*** OTHER ITINERARIES IN NEPAL:
- NEPAL (I): Trekking Khumbu-Cho la-Gokyo (Sagarmatha National Park)
http://es.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=15349413


*** GPS TECHNICAL DATA:
Name: Chitwan-Elephant Trek
Start Time: 11/19/2015 08:21
End Time: 11/19/2015 09:46
Distance covered: 3.9 km (01:25)
Time in motion: 01:18
Average speed: 2.8 km / h
Movement speed: 3.0 km / h
Maximum speed: 6.7km / h
Minimum height: 172 m
Maximum height: 208 m
Elevation gain: 114
Altitude loss: -114