The Leopard Trail: A Rajasthan Horse Safari

You ride Marwari horses, inward-curving ears, a gait bred for sand, from the thirty-six-kilometre wall at Kumbhalgarh down through Aravalli scrub to Jawai, where leopards sleep on granite outcrops above Rabari shepherds who have…

Length: 8 days, 7 nights
From: ₹3,15,000 per person
Pace: Active
Stops: 5
Best months: November to March

The route

5 stops over 8 days

Udaipur
Kumbhalgarh
Muthana
Dantiwara
Jawai

Five days on Marwari horses through the Aravallis
Kumbhalgarh’s thirty-six-kilometre wall, ridden from below at dusk
Leopards on granite domes at Jawai, morning and evening
Mobile camps at Muthana and Dantiwara, fire and farrier
Rabari shepherds, striped hyena, flamingos on Jawai Bandh

Day by day

What actually happens

Length: 8 days
Stops: 5
Pace: Active
From: ₹3,15,000

1D

Udaipur

Arrival in Udaipur

You fly into Udaipur, usually via Delhi or Mumbai, and are met in the arrivals hall. The haveli stands on the Ambrai side of Pichola, so the City Palace is what you look at over dinner. Your riding master joins you for a drink at seven to talk stirrup length, pace and what the Aravallis will ask of you.

Night: Amet Haveli, Udaipur
2B D

Udaipur

The city, then meet your horse

Morning in the city: the City Palace, the Crystal Gallery, a boat if you want one. After lunch you drive out to the stables to meet your horse. Marwaris, fifteen to sixteen hands, ears that curve in until the tips touch. An hour in the sand school, a short hack, and the saddler adjusts what needs adjusting.

Night: Amet Haveli, Udaipur
3B D

Kumbhalgarh

North to Kumbhalgarh, first ride

Two and a half hours north to Kumbhalgarh, where Rana Kumbha’s wall runs thirty-six kilometres over seven hills and is wide enough for eight horses abreast. Ride out at four through custard-apple scrub and Bhil hamlets, two hours, mostly walk and trot to settle everyone. Sundowner on the ramparts; the fort is floodlit at seven.

Night: The Aodhi, Kumbhalgarh
4B L D

Muthana

Off the plateau to Muthana

The first full day in the saddle: roughly thirty kilometres south-west, five hours with a long break. You drop off the plateau onto red earth, past step-wells and mustard, and the crew have lunch laid under a banyan before you arrive. Camp at Muthana is bucket showers done properly, a fire, and a farrier checking every foot before dark.

Night: Muthana Riding Camp
5B L D

Dantiwara

Dry riverbed, first long canters

Twenty-eight kilometres with the first proper canters: dry riverbed, good going, nothing under the sand. Peacocks all morning, nilgai at a distance, and shepherds who will ask where you are from before they ask anything else. Dantiwara camp sits below a granite ridge. Dinner is laal maas cooked over coals, and the horses are lined out fifty metres away.

Night: Dantiwara Camp
6B L D

Jawai

Ride to Jawai; first leopard drive

A shorter ride, twenty kilometres, ending where the granite starts to pile up into domes. This is Jawai: about sixty leopards living on outcrops within sight of Rabari settlements, and no recorded killing of a person. You hand the horses over at noon. First safari at four, in a Land Cruiser, with a tracker who knows each cat by name.

Night: Sujan Jawai
7B L D

Jawai

Leopards, cranes and the Rabari

Out at six with a flask. The leopards come down to drink and lie on the warm rock at Perwa and Devgiri; you may also find striped hyena, which is rarer. Mid-morning at Jawai Bandh for flamingos, bar-headed geese and a marsh crocodile or two. Afternoon tea with a Rabari family, then a second drive until the light goes.

Night: Sujan Jawai
8B

Jawai to Udaipur

Departure

One last drive at first light if your flight allows, then breakfast and three and a half hours back to Udaipur through Pali and the marble yards. We hold a room at the airport hotel for a shower and a change. Assistance at check-in for your connection to Delhi or Mumbai, and you fly home tonight.

Night: Day room at the Udaipur airport hotel