The Leopard’s Lair

Date: 19th Oct 2017 – 21 Oct 2017
Place: Bera, Rajasthan

Heard from a fellow group member on WhatsApp that we can experience Leopards in their natural habitat at a place about 2.5 hours away from Udaipur. Bera; pronounced as “Beda”, is a small village in the belly of Rajasthan, famous for these rocky hillocks with caves that provide a perfect habitat for leopards and they literally roam free. It has a classic landscape with Aravalli hills dotting scrub-land vegetation such as cactus and keekar.

Along this village flows the Jawai river on which a dam is build. This scenic place amidst the hills is home to some of the biggest crocodiles apart from a number of resident and migratory birds. October being a little too early for the birds to migrate, we decided to skip this part of the village and concentrated on spotting leopards

First Day early morning safari was disappointing, No leopards and pug marks nothing; spent some time off-roading in the area spotted a wonderful sunrise and few birds around

Sunrise by the Aravalli Mountains

Sun, yet to Rise

The evening safari was a little more exciting as we got a  chance to drive our own car and Berniee also came along. There were way too many people already here. People who did not understand the basic of wildlife spotting; there was lot of noise; some folks even played music in the car and kept honking again and again. It was a trip wasted

Our guide got a call from a fellow guide that they had spotted a leopard on the other side of the mountain. It was already very dark and I still had no hopes. We went on the other side of the mountain; again so many visitors and too many spot lights. I am sure the poor animal would have been very scared to even pop his head out from his lair.

Somewhere while all this was going on we did spot two blinking eyes behind the rock and we concluded it was leopard and called it a day. Back at the resort, while waiting for the dinner, I got busy with the folks and prepared a BBQ Chicken for ourselves. I realized , off the 6-7 families that were at the resort, we were the only ones who ate meat 🙂 all the checken for us to relish on.

With Berniee at the Lair

It was time for us to leave for home next early morning. By now I was familiar of the way to the lair and back. It was on our way back home too; we decided to take another chance with the wildlife. Early in the morning, we left for the Lair. It was a wise decision. Spotted 2 sitting on the varanda of their Lair, and one on the other side of the hill enjoying the view from the hillock.

Satisfied with what we saw, we decided to leave for home 🙂 Some memories enroute

Epic way of travelling in Gujrat

Forest area ends here

Rajasthan entry

Sunset on the way

The Route

While we went up from Modasa; as I want sure of the roads from Ahmadabad and decided to go to Bera via Udaipur. my recommendation would be to go and return via Ahmadabad.