Danger, danger everywhere

I was walking home from the restaurant Gibb's last night when my flashlight paused on an unusual trail in the dirt before me. Having never had the trail of a snake identified for me before, I had no trouble identifying this one.

I followed the trail with the beam of my flashlight and, seeing that it extended beyond my beam of light, I followed on foot. By the looks of it, the snake was a solid medium-sized snake for Tanzania (what would be considered a HUGE one back home). The ridges of its trail measured from the tip of my index finger to mid-way between my first and second knuckle. Based on my limited knowledge of snakes and their respective sizes, I wondered whether what I was seeing was the trail of a boa constrictor, or a puff adder, or maybe just a harmless house snake.

At that stage, my curiosity was greater than my fear. I followed the path around and around in circles down the road and found that one end of the trail led to a concrete ditch. No snake there. I then followed it around and around in circles in the other direction, until it led me to a pile of brush.

The beam of my light quivered back and forth through through the leaves. I investigated with suspicion, knowing how well the snakes here can camouflage themselves. At any moment, I expected an object that I had misidentified as a pile of leaves to uncoil in front of me.

At this stage, my fear began to reach a level that was approximately proportional to, and then greater than, my curiosity, and I backed away from the leaves and followed the dark, secluded road away from the brush, the snake and my brief moment of bravery.

So now, I still haven’t seen a live snake here, but now have proof that they exist – and in proportions greater than I have ever seen before.

On a side note, my roommate woke-up the night before last to the sound of what his sleepy-but-experienced-in-biological-matters mind identified as the see-sawing vocalizations of a leopard. He later told me that the guards in our neighborhood saw what they identified as a leopard on our front lawn some time ago. Let’s just say that if I see those tracks in the dirt on my way home at night, I won’t be following them into the bushes to see where they lead.