With the monsoons making everything lush green, we decided to pack our haversacks and gumboots and followed the Mrugaya Expeditions team into the Netravali jungles of South Goa for a three-day herping camp last weekend. Our destination was the Verlem village inside the Netravali wildlife sanctuary. Verlem is picture-postcard pretty, perched on the hill slopes of the Western Ghats. The village is engulfed by trees and forests and has biodiversity oozing out of every pore. We had booked with the Aangan Village Stay project run by the Verlem Ecotourism Cooperative Society Limited (VECSL), a 2014 initiative of the Mineral Foundation of Goa (MFOG). Tourists can typically book a two-night homestay with Aangan and get local guides or expert teams like Mrugaya to walk you through the jungle surrounding the village showing you snakes, frogs, birds and grasshoppers. On Friday afternoon, we were received warmly by the Aangan office team of Kalpesh Velip and Suchita Gaonkar and put up in Ashok bhau and Aparna bhabi’s home in the centre of the village. While Ashok is a farmer by profession, Aparna runs a small grocery store from home. Our meals were organized by one of the women’s self-help groups in the house next door. After a delicious lunch comprising taikilo (a local vegetable), kaapa (brinjal fritters), khat-khate (mixed vegetable curry), steamed rice and payas (kheer) we were taken on a walk around Verlem. The waterfall area in the Padal wada was extremely scenic and allowed us to see many butterflies like the Tailed Jay and Blue Oakleaf. We were luckier to see a green keelback snake near a stream. This is a very swift, non-venomous snake. When we returned for a breather, the affable, Deepali bhabi and her SHG team fed us some delicious buns (stuffed banana puris) with hot cups of tea. It rains very heavily in the jungles and this first evening of July was no different. Braving the rains, walking through puddles, we went frog watching. Standing in a cowshed in Gaonkar wada, we watched a pair of Malabar gliding frogs jump and glide with great ease. On the second morning, fortified by an appetizing breakfast of polle (rice dosas) and chatni, the Mrugaya team decided to take us on a longish, jungle trek in the direction of the Karnataka border. This was leech infested territory and hence we had worn the regulation cotton leech socks to prevent leeches from biting our feet. However, some enterprising leeches bit our arms. But this did not dilute the joy of walking through some very picturesque jungle country, overlooking misty hills in the distance. Fifteen minutes from the village and while walking past a brown bush, we spotted the first of the ten, green vine snakes that we would see on this two-day jungle camp. Vine snakes which are mildly venomous are active during the day and sleep at night. The snake that we sighted was moving swiftly across the bush, with its fluorescent green skin standing out against the brown background. We also spotted the eggs of the wrinkled frog, neatly attached to the leaves of plants growing on the jungle path. When the Mrugaya team showed us the eggs, we realized how vulnerable these eggs were to stomping urban feet. Among the birds, we spotted the rufus babblers and dark fronted babblers, both endemic to the Western Ghats. Enroute, we walked past a lot of erstwhile mining terrain and wondered how mining could ever be conducted in such pristine surroundings. The last night at the village was indeed memorable from the number of snake sightings made. We began by seeing a young, pit viper coiled up on the road. We realized that it could easily be run over by a fast moving car, hence we coiled it around a twig and moved it to relative safety. Sure enough, some ten minutes later, two cars zoomed past at high speed. This is how vulnerable animal life is. We also saw a record seven, green vine snakes fast asleep, neatly entwined to the branches of trees by the road side. The highlight of course, was a spider spinning a web ever so dexterously. Earlier in the evening, some of us even took part in an impromptu game of cricket with the village lads. What fun!