It was a sad day when we pulled into Juneau on our Alaskan, Princess Cruise. We were nearing the end of our trip and had saved one of our most spectacular excursions for the end.Today we were going dogsledding on a Mendenhall Glacier. When we stepped out onto our balcony, we saw that the rain was coming down hard.Trips were being canceled everywhere, and unfortunately ours was one of them. Don’t feel too bad for us. Instead of dogsledding, we got to go whale watching.
Ready for a real adventure? That is the tag line on the card of Ketchikan Outdoors in Alaska. This is one wild adventure. After watching our safety video, we were led to the dock where we got into our designated Zodiacs and in an instant we were flying out into the channel. This isn’t your grandparent’s cruise excursion. This is an authentic Alaskan boat trip out into the wild waters of Alaska.
Dave and I have never seen a big cat in the wild. We cycled down the continent of Africa and still managed to miss the lion. We went to the jaguar sanctuary in Belize and didn’t see a jaguar and we left India before we had a chance to go to the Tiger Sanctuary of Ranthambore or Khana. When we heard that there was a place in Sri Lanka that had the best chance of anywhere in the world to spot a Leopard in the wild, we knew that we had to go to Yala National Park.
Welcome to the first of our Sunday Snapshots. This was definitely a highlight not only of this week in travel, but probably our entire ten years in travel. We actually spotted a rare site in Sri Lanka’s, Yala National Park. The elusive leopard. The Leopard doesn’t make an appearance for everyone and as we can attest, not all people had the privilege that we had. Several jeeps waited a very long time for it to climb out of the tree or even move. We almost didn’t believe that it was there. Only a few jeeps remained, when our leopard climbed out of a tree, gave a big stretch, a look in our direction and then he walked slowly to a tree stump in long grass.
It is a badge of honor for anyone living in Ontario Canada. High Schools send students on a trip at the end of each year, cub scouts go on an annual canoe route and dad’s around the province take their sons and daughters out for a week of bonding on one of the may routes within the 2000 km of optional waterways.
Despite my years watching nature shows on tigers and living in a football town where no animal bests the “Tiger,” nothing prepared me for my experiences seeing two tigers in the wild at Ranthambore National Preserve in Sawai Madhopur, India. Visiting a wildlife reserve is one of the easiest ways that a traveler can contribute to a destination having a very high impact. By supporting wildlife sanctuaries, local people can learn that they can make money out of protecting their wildlife rather than destroying it, your money goes directly to helping the wildlife and you can easily inform the world about the plight of the endangered animals and what you can do.
Hands down one of our favorite adventure destinations on the planet is Malasyian Borneo. Sabah and Sarawak are exciting provinces filled with beautiful scenery and exciting wildlife. We had never even considered venturing to Borneo during our Asian Adventure, but when a fellow traveler told us of a great deal on flights from Air Asia, well we just had to go.
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