Magnificent Jawai - The Many Joys Of Leopard Country
Travel+Leisure India|September 2022
Leopard spotting may be the prime reason why Jawai has made it to the travel map, but it is certainly not the only one. From off-roading thrills to endearing red-turbaned Rabaris herding flocks of goats, the spectacles here are wide and varied, finds PUNITA MALHOTRA.
Punita Malhotra
Magnificent Jawai - The Many Joys Of Leopard Country

UNDISTURBED MONOTONY had been our loyal companion all along the National Highway 162 from Delhi. But now, as we curved along the Pali-Beawar flyover and glided over the asphalt ribbon slicing through the sheer rock of Aravallis, anticipation stirred.

Past the congested lanes of Sumerpur village, it was a catapult, without fair warning, into the most bucolic scenes. A lavish tapestry of gentle farmlands stretched for miles in every direction. Lacing the horizon were lava-cooled hills sculpted over billions of years by the forces of nature. The natural caves and rock shelters of these enormous granite mountains sheltered one of the world’s highest non-forest concentrations of Panthera Pardus. This was leopard country, and we had just been blind-sighted by a lost GPS.

In the last lap of our 660-km, 10-hour ride we manoeuvered waterlogged tunnels, hard-rock stone surfaces and even a bumpy dirt road running beside railway tracks, we landed weary and weather-beaten at Bera Safari Lodge. Artfully designed by the owner, wildlife conservationist and photographer Shatrunjay Pratap Singh and his wife Katyaini, it instantly struck a chord with its thatched roof mud huts, lantern-lit sandy paths, and fi ve (naturally distanced) stone cottages. Other than a few rustic village homes, there was no evidence of civilisation in the cacti-fi-lled rocky desert.

Into the wilderness

This story is from the September 2022 edition of Travel+Leisure India.

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This story is from the September 2022 edition of Travel+Leisure India.

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