Wednesday, June 9th, 2010. - Day 18

19:15 Hrs. Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Wildlife Sanctuary, Karnataka, India.

Our last breakfast at MM Hills. This experience has lost its wide-eyed new feeling. Now it seems we travel from place to place, seeing things that grow more and more beautiful. MM Hills is truly a beautiful place. After a bit of rest, we loaded the bus (with a new driver, Manosh) and headed out around 11:00.

Our trip included a Bollywood film that Brandy had bought at market in the morning, played on the bus' DVD player (tour bus). We stopped at Kollegal, which we had passed on our way to MM. Kollegal has the only route to BRT. We had lunch at a delicious local restaurant, including some Slice mango juice, some Massala Chipati, and who knows what else. There we picked up Siddapa, who is accompanying us to BRT. Upon boarding the bus again, a new movie, Ongbak 2 began playing. Though we didn't see the end of the 'guy has trouble getting girl' Bollywood flick, we took a pretty well educated guess... This new movie we're convinced is the purchase of the bus driver. It lost my attention pretty quickly.

BRT is quite the place. 540 km square of very lush forests, scrubs, and grasslands. It reminds me much of the Smoky Mountains, just with completely more tropical vegetation. We arrived at the ATREE field site and guest house the girls would be staying at. Then quickly to the gents' quarters. Decent accomodations. Again Geeta had us prepared for far worse. 3 pieces of wood on sticks for beds with a mattress the thickness of my finger, but a bed and room nonetheless. A western toilet believe it or not, though its functionability is hardly worthwhile. Anyway the community is very homey and beautiful, a faint reminder of UTC without the surrounding hustle and bustle of Bangalore, merely more lush forest. We are truly in rural INdia. The boys' guest houses are at the school ATREE assists at for Soliga people that live in the forest. 57 total tribal villages, 14 of which refused to leave the sanctuaries boundaries after the request from the Indian Forest Service, and continue to live within to this day. The whole place has a feel of small medieval hamlets or villages in the mountains of Ireland, but for some reason, everything is tropical.

We briefly unloaded, then returned to the girls dorms at the ATREE field site. Another excursion in the van to see wildlife. Seeing anything with a group this size (of boisterous Americans no less), in a noisy tourism van seems and had proved near impossible. Though we'd seen animals before on our excursions, never a true spotting worthy of the work our educators had done. Perhpas a combination of having Siddapa with us (an incredible wildlife exper), the time of day and weather of the outing, and the overall beauty and serenity of the place keeping us quiet, gave us multiple spottings. The first was a beautiful owl of immense stature that there is still much debate over its identification. With similar appearance and coloration to a Great Horned Owl, it flew across the road behind the van with deadly silent accuracy. We drove on. Then we spotted the big guns. This whole trip seems to have been planned by Geeta on the trail of the world's largest terrestrial creature. 'Elephas Maximus' moves south through India in its migrations. Coming from central India, they move through Bannerghatta N.P., Biligiri R.F., Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, B.R. Hills, Bandipur T.R., Mudumalai, and onward. It would seem Geeta planned this trip to line up with the towering veggie-saur. And yet until now we'd only heard a far off trumpet from atop Rock Hill. As we passed a small lake, there they were. Three beautiful female elephants, no more than nine feet tall, about forty feet away. As we turned off the engine and very carefully milled about the van to get a good look and take pictures, we, with the help of Siddapa and Geeta, identified their ages and roles in the herd. Sixteen very large and heavily padded feet...a fourth tail flicked out low to the ground. A baby. No more than two-months old. As the elders sensed our noisy and smelly presence, they began readjusting to encircle and further protect the young calf. The furthest away individual retreated a ways to the brush with her tail elevated and turned back to face us directly. She wanted running room. "Go Manosh!" Geeta shouted in a loud hoarse whisper. The elephant let out a loud warning trumpet and picked up speed straight towards us...