#9: Hamsters in Vienna

I knew about the existence of wild hamsters but had assumed I’d need to travel to the eastern fringes of Europe and spend an age looking to find them. On a note that was hitherto unrelated, when I tacked on Vienna to my Eastern Europe jaunt as a reward for being disciplined with my spending I did a quick check around the net to see if anything interesting lurks in that part of Austria. When I found reports of wild hamsters living in the cemeteries, I knew I’d be shifting everything on my to-do list one rung downwards. Venturing in on a drizzly day, it didn’t take me long to see Chubby Cheeks scurrying among the gravestones. It was admittedly a bit bigger than expected – calling it a mini guinea pig would have been accurate enough. I eventually found a very cooperative one that got to within metres of me whilst nibbling on the chestnuts in the middle of the path. Moral of the story: no matter where you’re off to, check the internet or the guidebook for hidden treasures.

#8: A gathering of bears

I had already known Romania was full of bears, and had admittedly not done any true hiking into the wilderness when I went to a site outside of Brasov, Transylvania’s capital, save for a short trip to the forests in the hills above. But the landscape simply felt normal. It looked just like the German or French countryside and geographically speaking was not far off. As did the forest on the way to the hide. So when a group of thirteen bears, getting fed fragments of a carcass by the lady who ran these tours, were assembled, and we watched them knowing full well these were wild individuals, it made me a tad apprehensive. But then, the fact that I’d not seen them until now at least provided a bit of ever-reliable anecdotal evidence that they like to stay hidden from humans.

#7: A shark in Sumatra

There’s a bit of schadenfreude to this one. I went out on a boat off Pulau Weh, one of Indonesia’s up and coming dive sites, to do some snorkelling above a reef while the divers with their qualifications were able to go deeper. I could see the bubbles rising from the navy blue depths, and spent a moment wishing it were me creating them before getting back to what I was doing. I swam about, my lifejacket bobbing me up and down on the waves. And there, beneath me, swam a blacktip reef shark. Not big, and certainly nothing to be concerned about (hello to any of my family who may be reading this) but beautiful nonetheless. Anyway: at the post-dive briefing at the resort, where I reported what I had seen, it turned out that those who had gone deeper, had to prepare more equipment and paid more had not had my level of success. Oh well, the positions could have easily been reversed. Luck is the only secret to wildlife spotting, though come to think about it it’s not exactly a secret.

#6: The Khao Yai trip

Khao Yai was the first wild space I visited outside of Europe and as a backpacker. The rainforest was something I’d learned about since the days that I was learning how to read, so there was an element of finality to seeing the jungle in person for the first time. It did not disappoint. It started off with climbing up the hill in the guesthouse’s truck, stopping to see the “big bird” – great hornbills – and went on to produce troops of gibbons and giant squirrels navigating the treetops, a crocodile lurking in the river and huge swarms of butterflies. Before this, the Mediterannean had been the most exotic part of the world I’d visited (if exoticity can be measured), so when we saw an elephant standing by the roadside it took me a moment to register that I was not in a safari park.

#5: Fruit bats in Borneo

After a jet-lagged few days in Kuala Lumpur, Borneo was naturally the next stop for me. As with the Galapagos, it’s an ecotourism magnet with plenty of highlights to speak of; orang-utans, proboscis monkeys, fish owls, civets and hornbills had all wowed me. One thing stood above the rest, though; on our way to a site for a night walk, as the sun was setting fruit bats started to emerge, crossing the gorge-like gap between the trees that was the river, one after another. The boatman, not wanting to scare them off, had put the motor down to a low hum. There was no swarm, just a series of social-distancing, meter-wide bats gently flapping their wings. Most safari highlights are exhilarating, and leave you ready for a good night’s sleep – but this was the jungle’s equivalent of counting sheep, and I had not felt so relaxed for quite a while indeed.

#4: Walking the Tijertas Hill trail

There were many amazing moments in the Galapagos, most of which involved getting up close to animals found nowhere else just like Darwin would have done before. However, my unquestioned favourite part of the island was a short(ish) hike leading from the town up to a secluded beach. It starts off at the visitor centre, where info on the first settlers and the political history of the Galapagos is laid out. A boardwalk leading out the back meanders up a rocky hill then becomes stairs once you reach earth. At the top is a platform with a beautiful view of the bay below and the Pacific stretching out to the horizon – yet, it’s not so high up that you can’t see sea lions and turtles frolicking in the water, and boobies diving in after fish before being harassed by frigatebirds. In fact, the frigatebirds gave this hill its name (“tijertas” meaning “scissor tail”) with their nests here, some just metres beneath the platform. Continuing downhill, the path is strewn by flocks of Darwin’s famous finches and marine iguanas, one of which I almost landed on. After a section that involves scrambling over some intimidatingly pointed rocks, it ends at a cove full of sea lions and (when I went) Galapagos sharks.

#3: Paz de las Aves

Renowned by birders in Ecuador, I couldn’t agree with them more. It’s a morning that starts off with an Andean cock of the rock lek, where fifteen orange-crested males bob their heads up and down for any prospective females. Next, some birds that are nigh on impossible to see elsewhere including one that can be best described as a walking football and many of which can only be found in the Choco, the name of this forest stretching across Ecuador and Colombia. In fact, there are five instances of this, all one after the other. Next, breakfast at the reserve’s HQ, where hummingbirds of all shapes, sizes and colours are mobbing feeders behind me, and in front a slew of primary-colour tanagers, most of them new species to me, are gorging on bananas, before being joined by a couple of other brightly coloured targets. All that in one morning.

#2: Kruger’s leopards

Why it was amazing: the luck and the skill. Some tourists come to Africa and fall short of the big five thanks to this secretive cat. I spotted a giant one atop a tree on one day after pointing out a suspiciously shaped “branch” that, upon looking closely, turned out to have spots – which then moved, and morphed into one walking down the trunk, facing the line of vehicles. The next one was a bit smaller, but all the more magnificent for prowling about out in the open and allowing me some smashing shots. I only ever do my “dramatic gasp” for moments like that.

#1: Kruger’s cheetahs

Kruger is actually not well known for cheetah, my favourite animal, and one I’d been eager to see prior to landing in South Africa. It’s bushy and full of lions, not the best place for Fair Play. In fact, I researched at length alternative options to Kruger such as the Kalahari, where they are more easily seen, before logistics defeated me and I decided I would go to somewhere like Kenya for it. Kruger would be more for the other animals and if I just so happened to see cheetah, that would be a golden bonus. So as we approached a line of vehicles and the guide said “could be cheetah, they’ve been seen around here” I told myself, “could this be it?” And lo and behold, there’s a family lazing about on the road. Fortunately, a bit more action happens when a hyena shows up and gets the mother understandably worried, convincing the other tourists in the vehicle to stay longer.