Wayanad in Kerala

Turned out that I had only one free day while in Calicut- the first Sunday was there. One of the EM fellows, Pradeep, took me to Wayanad along with one of the EMS fellows (I'm a jerk and have forgotten his name). The Wayanad is a wildlife preserve with wild elephants, tigers, bears, monkeys, deer and lots of birds. To enter the wildlife preserve area to go on a "safari" you MUST rent a jeep and a guide (The guides are all native to the area- they call them "tribal people" and their work in the reserve is part of the compensation the governement has made with them since this land is all area where they ave hunted/gathered and fished). The drive to Wayanad took us three hours, through coffee, tea and pepper plantations, up hills/mountains along a road with 9 "hairpin" turns. We passed a gigantic statue of Jesus with a busload of muslims men standing in front of it getting their picture taken with the giant Jesus. The land for the church was donated by a large Muslim organization.
We arrived just after they closed the morning session but they let us go on the safari because we had driven from Calicut and I think someone in his family is a patient at MIMS... anyway, it was getting hot so we didn't get a ton of animal sightings. I wasn't exactly sure what we were doing for the day- I was hoping to do a little hiking and see some prehistoric cave paintings but I think we were unable to fit everything in due to travel time- the roads were tough. So, what we did get to do was to go to the preserve and to an island area where there is some hiking and lots of islands and rivers to wade through. Very pretty- we tried to get to some lake but it was closed when we arrived- looked like someplace to just relax and go paddle-boating. Okay enough blah blah blah, here are pics.

tea plantation

mama monkey and baby- kind of blurry

fresh tiger print on the path! I'm told there are only 6 left on last census

elephants bathing

bamboo jungle

"tribal people" on their way fishing- she has the woven fishing basket on her head- they make a little dam, then create a little opening and place the woven net in front catching fish as they come throug the opening

The toll gate/barrier thing - pic for Alex

haystacks with these things on top of them- meant to keep birds from eating the hay

paddy fields

pradeep

EMS fellow

river we needed to cross to get to the main island

A treehouse lookout

"tribal people" looking for shellfish

From the top of the 9 hairpin turns

monkeys are fed by tourists- the monkeys are pretty aggressive!