Day 93: Dandelli to Karwar

 “No Tiger spotting for you!”

 We set out this morning with a plan, after saying goodbye to Vinay and his mum whose homestay we’d lodged at overnight. 

We wanted to get to the Kali Tiger Reserve’s Nature Camp and go on a safari or two into the reserve.  We’d only see a Tiger if we weee really lucky, but we wouldn’t see one if we didn’t try. 

We’d had some trouble booking the place online, but a phone call seemed to have fixed that. ​

The road to Anshi was very pretty, climbing through the forest. It was quiet as well, they even advise against vehicles using their horns - and some drivers even took notice. 

We wclimbed a gentle gradient for a long time, gradually gaining height until our snack stop had a view over the forested hilltops below. ​

A little more riding and we were at the Nature Camp - and it was firmly locked. A gate at the side was unlocked though so we let ourselves in - to a ghost town. This is quite a big camp, with about 10 large permanent tents, a similar number of huts and some dormitories. It would sleep over 100 people, but it was deserted.  

We started looking around and eventually found signs of life at the back of the large dining area. No one seemed keen to come out of their dark huts though - a full siesta was in progress. 

We left it a little and discussed our options but still no-one emergesd to talk to this random trio of English people who’d noisily let themselves in on bicycles.  

Another, even louder, exploration finally yielded some people to talk to.  

“We’ve booked two tents for tonight.” 

The response was “No.” 

”No really, we have, we phoned Jenerapan (spelling?) yesterday.”

“Oh.” 

So they call the booking office and after much discussion I speak again to Jenerapan, who denies we booked the tents yesterday. With the people on site looking very reluctant to do some work and the booking staff making no sense we decided to call it quits and head to the coast instead. 

The good thing about that was descending around 600m over 10km - we soared down to the river valley below. 

So, instead of searching for Tigers, we’re holed up in a little seaside town, ready to push up into Goa tomorrow.