We woke up at 4:20 again, because we were slated to go back to zone 1 again. There were no other guests on our trek, but we did have the lodge's head naturalist guide, however, along with Vijay. In the pitch black on the drive to Zone 1, saw some reflected eyes in field across from the Zone 2 gate. Vijay stopped the vehicle, shined light on the area, looked through binoculars, and exclaimed "tigers." He told us he saw two on a small mound. So rather than continue on, we stopped to wait for sun to come up. Vijay maneuvered the car into a prime location, and we just waited. As the cars came to line up for Zone 2, they saw us and wondered what we were up to. None of them saw the tigers, because coming from other direction the angle was wrong, and the tigers were not visible. So all of them got a gift from us. After awhile, instead of a line for Zone 2, everyone was along the road opposite the gate. It got light enough to get some good (well, decent) photos, and then we left for the Zoen 1 gate.

On way out, we saw that no one really had the vantage point we did, so they must have been craning just for a slight view of the tigers we saw relatively clearly. It was kind of sad only folks from our lodge and the Zone 2 folks saw it. For zone 3 folks, it was really too bad, since the would have turned off road about 500 meters before the sighting area. We told the zone 3 guards as we headed out (so that they'd direct folks to the viewing area before coming into zone 3), but by then it was 5:40 and probably a lot of folks had headed in already. It took us about another 10 minutes or so to get to Zone 1 gate. Vijay had told us the night before that he was working the park rangers to get either the B-D or the D-B route for today, and his hard work had paid off, as we got the B-D route, meaning that between our 7 drives, we saw all of the various parts of zones 1, 2, and 3. We made a right turn where before we'd headed straight when on the A-C or C-A routes. There was some nice scenery, and the area was more open, as there was far less bamboo than we'd seen in other areas.

About 10 minutes into Zone 1, we saw several cars stopped, and we quickly realized they were there for a female tiger. This area had a lot of bamboo, but we maneuvered to get a clearer view. The tiger looked like it was stalking something, but then laid down. After about 20 munutes or so, we heard an alarm call nearby, one that got even the tiger's attention. We and the one other remaining car backed up, and the other car saw a leopard momentarily, while we missed it by 2-3 seconds, as it scurried away from the road. Once we realized we weren't going to see the leopard, we went back to the tiger and parked in the spot the other truck had been in. We waited another 5 minutes or so, then left area for good, it was just past 7 am and we'd been on the trail only 10 minutes, but already seen 3 tigers.

We meandered a bit through some nice areas, including one very large meadow that was full of axis deer. There were a bunch of vultures over what must have been a kill, but it was very small, and we couldn't make anything out. We came across some of the park rangers, and asked if there was any news - they said there was a male sleeping near the road about 5 kilometers away. In 10 minutes or so, we were there, along with maybe 10 other cars. The tiger was very far away, but eventually Vijay found him camoflauged in the brush. Vijay then maneuvered so that we could get a straight shot, even if far away. He was sleeping, but at one point picked up his head a bit so we could see his face. At this point, we were about only halfway done with our drive, and told Vijay we needed only 3 more to break his record (he indicated he'd once seen 6 on a drive, a mom and 4 cubs plus a separate tiger).

We left the male tiger and headed back towards some more open areas and some water holes. There were many more deer and monkeys than in zone 3 - it's amazing what lack of fires will do. We saw a couple of eagles circling, and even Vijay took his camera out for that. We made our way back to the gate, and then headed out one final time. On the way back to the lodge, we found out that Zone 2 folks heard only growls, so if not for our sighting very first thing, they would have been 0-fer. All told, we had 5.5 sightings (0.5 since Crystal wasn't sure she saw the one that was so far away two nights previous): one poor (the one Crystal wasn't sure she saw), one mediocre (the male sleeping), two okay (the male and female pair this morning), one good (the female in the bamboo), and one excellent (the female two days prior). We probably would have been okay with the one mediocre, especially if we saw it on the last day. We had determined not to be greedy the night before, and karma rewarded us.

Back at the lodge, we got cleaned up, put super dusty clothes into their own plastic bag so they wouldn't contaminate our other clothes, then packed that and everything else. We bought a couple trinkets, checked out, and said goodbye to everyone. We got on the road about 11:15 for Khajaraho. There were some blue bulls not far from the resort. After about 15-20 minutes, we got on some paved road; it was great to be back on that. We got to Khajuraho just after 4pm. There was no one at the hotel, almost literally no one. There was nothing to do either, so we just killed time watching TV. We went to dinner at 7, and the only person in the restaurant was on the ground, fixing something under a table. So we headed out of the restaurant and looked for what else was around. We saw 2 people sitting in the pool area, one person in the hallway, and that was it. We think we were the only 5 patrons in the whole hotel. We asked in the bar if we could order from restaurant, and the bartender Pradeep said we could. So we orrdered a pitcher of the Namaste cocktail, which had Gin, Vodka, Blue Curacao, Orange Juice, Lemonade, plus some mint - basically our Shiznit recipe, but with mint instead of soda. The dinner was quite good, as perhaps the chef was just happy to be cooking something for someone. After dinner, we went to sleep early since we could "sleep in" until 6:30 the next day.