SAFARI: A PERSONAL WILDLIFE ENCOUNTER

TRIVIA ANSWER:  Which two animal species are able to actually alter their habitat?  Humans and elephants.  Elephants tend to tear off branches of trees, and pull trees apart and kill them, partially to eat the leaves at the top and partially to rub against them to rub off ticks and other parasites.  Consequently, we sawq lots of areas that have only little dead tree stumps, devastated by the elephants.

Forgot to tell about the personal wildlife encounter we had in our room last night before dinner.  In one somewhat dark corner of the room there was a open corner unit with hangers for clothes and a couple of slat shelves.  After returning from the afternoon game drive, we were told that we had a whole hour of free time to do whatever we wanted then we had to be in the dining room for dinner by 7:30.  So my sister and I decided to take showers – I went first.  As I came out of the shower and began to towel off, I saw her standing naked about 3 feet away from the corner unit and pointing her camera at it.  She had just hung up a shirt and saw big, wiggly, hairy spider legs creeping up from the back of the unit.  She told me she was trying to take a picture of the spider that was there so she could figure out what to do about it, but she was too afraid to get close enough for the camera to get a good shot, and besides, the flash might startle the spider and who knows what it might do.  Well, both of us are not very good about spiders – we’ll do almost anything to avoid dealing with them.  I tried to take a look from a distance but didn’t see anything and was not about to get any closer, especially naked.

We were in a dilemma.  My sister needed to take a shower because we only had 30 more minutes before dinner and we were not about to leave for dinner without the spider being dispatched because who knows where the spider might go when we were gone and it could crawl just anywhere, like into our luggage.  So in a situation like this, vanity and bravery rapidly jump out the window and I had no problem calling the front desk to ask them to send someone to dispatch the spider (I didn’t care how much they laughed).  So they said they would send someone.  Now all of a sudden, I needed to throw on some clothes and my sister still had to take a shower (our dinner deadline was rapidly approaching).  20 minutes later and still no hotel person had arrived and we were really in a dilemma.  So once again I picked up the phone and called Lisa, our guide.  I was quite honest about the situation and explained that I definitely understood how this might look and how wimpy we were but we didn’t care.  I even said that we were perfectly fine if she told stories about us to every tour group she led after this.  We were willing to pay any price, pride was just not a factor.  Luckily she is a very forgiving type of person and graciously agreed to come over immediately.

So Lisa showed up, flashlight in hand, and asked were the spider was.  She walked over to the corner unit as my sister and I backed off to the farthest corner of the room (my sister still wet from her shower but clothed at least).  Meanwhile, I was reminding Lisa that we were quite aware of how silly this might look to her but that we were willing to live with the wimpy reputation if that is what it took to get rid of the spider.  After a few seconds of carefully looking around, Lisa all of a sudden said “I think I’ve found the spider.  Is this it?” and she pulled out a thing with long, hairy, wiggly spider legs and started to wiggle it.  Both of us could barely stand to look and then we burst out laughing.  Apparently a part of an ostrich-feather duster had gotten caught in the back of the shelf and broken off and when my sister hung up her shirt it stirred the air enough for the feathers to wiggle in the breeze, and looked for the all the world like a spider.  So Lisa grandly handed over the “spider” and we went to dinner.

But the story doesn’t end there.  Knowing how silly the whole situation looked, my sister brought the “spider” to dinner (pressed between the pages of her journal) and we told the story on ourselves with Lisa as the heroine.  We had everyone in suspense as my sister slowly pulled the “spider” from the pages of her book and started wiggling it and everyone had a really good laugh.

But the story doesn’t end there.  The next day, Lisa found the most perfect postcard, which everyone signed on the back, and we were most ceremoniously presented with the postcard.  The card has a drawing of a couple camping in the bush, sitting on a log in front of a campfire with a tent off to one side.  The woman is sitting in the man’s lap clutching him in terror, both of their eyes are bugging out in fear as they are focused on a big hairy spider on the ground of front of them.  Unknown to them, in back of them, is a large pride of lions focused on the humans.  Just helps to put it all in perspective, African style.