African Rock Python

Yesterday was a really good day.  We woke up and got busy getting lunch ready and the house, both inside and out, presentable.  We had invited the chief over for lunch before we left for Thanksgiving and Thursday, December 1 was the date we all agreed on.  The chief and I are friends and I feel comfortable around him so we weren’t all that nervous about having him over but this was his first official visit and lunch.  Lesley cooked up a roast from that Lechwe I shot last month with some mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, biscuits, sweet tea and brownies.  We all had a really good time.  It is always fun to invite the locals over for a meal with silverware, no nshima and deserts.  The clashing of cultures is both comical and enlightening.  Tyler was very controlled and respectable for the duration of the visit.  After our company left, I washed the dishes and Lesley cleaned up the dining room.  We both fell on the couch and didn’t move for quite some time.  I knew I was in rather deep when I didn’t get up to answer the phone the first 5 times it rang over a 15 minute period.  Finally, it got the best of me and I decided to get up.

When I answered the phone it was Humphrey telling me there was a snake in the tree at the gas station and they wanted me to come take a look at it.  I seem to have become the resident herpatologist.  I arrived with my book and a professional snake handling device I made from a piece of re-bar.  They said it was up in the tree so I was hoping for something like a boomslang or a mamba but nope.  It was a python.  I have been waiting for this since we got here.  Yes, for those of you who don’t know, I do love snakes.  I have seen most of the nasties here but I have yet to see a python.  It was a small one, no more then 4 feet or so, but still very exciting.  I located the snake at the top of this tree, grabbed my re-bar and started up the tree.  You should have seen this place.  It was like a circus.  Africans HATE snakes and they were running as soon as I started climbing.  Of course they all think I’m crazy too for climbing up after this thing.  As it turns out, pythons are protected and you can get into some very serious trouble for killing one.  The owners of the filling station know me and didn’t want the snake killed so they were the ones who called to have me come and take it away before the locals got a hold of it.

I couldn’t grab it because it took off up the tree to the very top.  I came back down to move over to a better spot when one of the guys who works there climbed up as well.  He reached the top and was close enough for an extraction.  I told him to grab the snake by the head if he could and lo and behold he did it.  I was so impressed.  He didn’t even flinch.  Now when we came down he didn’t want to see it again, even in the sack.  Well, it turned out to be a real hoot.  I ended up taking the bag down the river a good ways to a place where there are no villages and made my way to the river to find a suitable home for him.  I parked and walked down this dry creek bed to the river.  Along the way I am making my way through a mine field of elephant dung, fresh hippo tracks and even slipped up on the back side of the very elusive and shy bush buck.  I have to tell you it was very exciting but also very real!  I was not in the woods back at 815 Lynwood Spring, Texas.  I found my way to the Zambezi to a tiny sand bank while I watched the sun slip behind the mountains.  The hippos were just in front.  Their deep bellows make your chest shake and the frogs all started to sing as the sun began to sink.  I opened the bag and off he slithered.  I know this is not what most people would find appealing, but it sure was a great feeling to be in the middle of nowhere and see all that God has created, even the snakes.

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