Thursday, September 24, 2009

The Cavala Caves

The second day, we trekked to the Cavala Caves with its curious formations of stalactites and stalacmites.
The vegetation changed perceptibly as we went deeper into the jungle. I saw many rare and endangered wild flowers ,I will be posting the pictures soon. Many of us got bitten by leeches, but fortunately, they (the leeches ) left me alone.

The leeches seemed to have a great attraction for the shapely leg of my friend Pratibha! This fellow fell off after drinking its fill. Even after the leech falls off, the small wound will be bleeding for some time because the leeches use an anti coagulant so that the blood doesn't form a clot.


This is the forest in which we saw the fresh pug marks of the tiger. Our guide was more worried about the elephants which he could smell. At one point, he almost asked us to turn back, but then we saw this langur in a clearing. The langur's demeanor told our guide that the elephants were moving away. So we continued on our trek.



The Indian Langur, or the Hanuman Langur Semnopithecus entellus is an Old World primate. He has a long tail and long limbs. He jumps amazing distances on treetops. The langur has a special relationship with the deer. From the treetops he sees the predators and warns the grazing deer. The deer have a good sense of smell, so they warn the langur when he is on the ground.




6 comments:

  1. What an adventure and I can't wait for more! The langur looks like a wise old man. We do not have any leeches here that I know of but I would wear long pants to avoid them if they were here.

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  2. I am going to get my backpack ready! Could you go into the cave to see the stalactites and stalagmites, or is it barricaded? I liked the shot of/with the spider -- it's so interesting, there is no web to be seen!

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  3. Islandgal, it was an adventure to be remembered.
    Shailaja, I did crawl through the cave to see the formations. The spider was as big as my hand! Our guide also showed us the holes(homes) of the dreaded Tarantula spider, but the picture hasn't come properly.

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  4. The wild flowers sound interesting! Can't wait for more pics! Leeches freak me out...really like the shots of the jungle.

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  5. Oh I have some good cave photos I took here, I'll have to blog them for you :D

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