Who knew there was a jungle in Nepal?

We crossed the Nepali border and headed straight to Chitwan National Park. This is a forest famous for the Bengal tiger, one-horned rhino, sloth bear, leopard, elephant, crocodile and over 500 species of birds.

The morning after we arrived, we departed on a three-day, two-night jungle trek accompanied by two awesome guides from the lodge we were staying at. We began with a three hour canoe ride through the grasslands of the jungle in a hand-carved canoe. We spotted many species of birds (which our guides were uncanny in their ability to recognize a bird from hundreds of meters away or from call alone). Also we saw many crocs sunning on the banks of the river.

After the canoe trip, the four of us walked a total of 23 kilometers through grasslands and through thick, dense forests. Our guides took us through the jungle on major trails and those that we blazed ourselves. Our only protection from the tigers, rhinos and bears were the bamboo sticks our guides carried! That first day we saw many deer, wild boars and a handful of rhinos and a sloth bear. In some areas we got extremely close to the wildlife (pics above)!

That night and the second night we stayed at homestays in small, remote farming villages on the border of the jungle. The second night's village was so friendly to us foreigners. They were amazed by our appearances and our camera! The children surrounded and asked for photo after photo. We also sat and watched our meal being prepared over an open fire. Our chicken started out alive and clucking next to us, and ended up skinned and in a pot of curry!

We saw a total of 23 rhinos, 5 sloth bears, over 100 deer, 10 wild boar, a mongoose, over 25 crocs, over 150 species of birds (our guides remembered every instance of sighting after returning to the lodge!). Unfortunately, no jungle cats.

We also did a two hour elephant safari where we were able to get very close to a rhino and some deer.

The baby elephant was three days old and was at the local elephant breeding center. He was so cute he could hardly walk under his own power.

We are now up farther north where the mountains are. Getting prepared for our Everest trek in a few weeks!