Team Wanderlust photo essay

Nepal - Long before Steve Erwin or Animal Planet there was the classic animal TV show, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. This old-school program, hosted by the legendary Marlin Perkins, got me forever hooked on wild animals and adventure travel. One of my favorite  childhood memories was watching this show late Saturday mornings after all the cartoons had finished. I’d sit in front of the boob-tube with a big bowl of Corn Pops drenched in chocolate milk, and watch in amazement as a 60-year old Marlin Perkins would lasso on horseback then wrestle to submission a 20-foot anaconda in the middle of a crocodile infested raging Amazon river! Ol' Marlin was clearly insane and I loved him for it. Unfortunately, I haven't had any crazy animal encounters like Marlin Perkins or Steve Erwin, but tracking wild tigers in the jungles of Nepal comes kinda close.

Tigers are bad-ass. They’re my favorite animal. But they’re shy solitary creatures, so to run into one in the wild is rare. They were in the area because of the fresh tracks we found by the riverbank, but unfortunately we didn't get to spot any this expedition. We did get to see lot’s of crazy monkeys, colorful birds, alien bugs, rare crocodiles, and wild rhinos. Yes, rhinos! Our guide knew they were near because of all the fresh poop they left behind. So, mounted on our expedition elephants we trekked deep into the jungle in search of these beautiful creatures. Amazingly we didn’t find just one, but a small herd with a mother and calf! Like all moms, rhino moms are very protective of their young. They will charge with no warning, so Izzy was glad we ran into them from the safety of our sturdy elephants. Rhinos have bad eyesight and charge in a straight line, so if you are attacked you’re supposed to evade them by running in zig-zag formation. Easier said then done when you have the one-ton beast trying to mowing you down! Luckily, we didn’t have to evade any rhinos that day. (But that would’ve been one helluva story!)