Nepal 97 Travelog : Tiger spotting in the Chitwan national park (19/24)

<BODY BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT = "#ABCBBE"> <PRE>The Chitwan National park : TIGER STORY So, after 20 to 25 minutes, we first spot from far away a Rhino mother with his "baby", crossing a river !! Then, we went into deeper Jungle ! Suddenly, our Pahit ask us several times to be very quiet !! He surely did spot something ! What it was, was not clear !! But it was really exciting !! I was the first to spot a spotted "tail" through the deep jungle !! According to me, it looked like the one of a leopard !! Ten meters after, we were at the spot of a kill : a deer, which was giving birth, was lying half eaten on the ground : no more doubt, we were just disturbing a Tiger (a leopard would have brought the kill in a tree) in the middle of its lunch !! Obviously, the Pahit saw the Tiger disappearing in the Jungle (we didn't).. At this time, I had only see the last 20 cm of a tiger tail.. and I thought we won't see more than that him at all ! But, few seconds later, the Tiger was coming to claim back his kill and was facing the elephant (and the 4 guys on the elephant), who was quite afraid and started to trumpet like hell ! The tiger stared at us not very long (2 or 3 seconds may be) before clearing out in the jungle !! The 4 of us could enjoy the view of the animal in his totality !! At this stage, you should ask : where is the Tiger shot !! Unfortunately, none of us could get a clear shot of the Tiger !! I had switch my camera in an automatic autofocus mode (fatal error) so I could hear the camera looking for the right focus for 5 seconds… and taking the shot when the Tiger was already far away.. Aaarrrrrrghhhhhhhh !!!!!!!!! It is clear I missed the shot of my life ! But I don't mind, I will always remember having spotting the tail of the animal, the posture and the look of the animal facing us… After this incredible encounter, the Pahit tried to follow the Tiger trail !! We were hearing the Tiger howling not far from us, but we didn't have a second chance to see him !! Anyhow, the elephant was moving quickly through the jungle, and you had to be very careful in order to avoid all the low branch of the trees… During our way back, we had the chance to see other animals, including rhinos at three occasions… </PRE> </BODY>