It is no secret that my husband is a complete snake nut, having had a life-long passion for these fascinating and much misunderstood creatures, and is indeed a leading authority on the subject. It is a rather better-kept secret that the resident staff in most camps in Kenya see more snakes than they are ever prepared to admit to, considering the large proportion of visitors who harbour serious phobias on the subject.
Before I met Anthony, I, like most people, was a great believer in the Legend of the Black Mamba; this fabled snake was alleged to hunt down unsuspecting victims on sight, attacking people without warning and charging across roads towards cars with no other object than to munch away at anything they could get their fangs into. Having spent the last 20 years with Anthony living in various camps in Kenya, my opinion has changed and whilst I have a extremely healthy respect for all snakes – especially our mamba friends – I have come to realise that although to most people seeing any sort of snake may represent an immediate threat, they are governed by the same basic instinct of survival as almost all living creates – fight or flight. With both options presented to them, snakes will almost always opt for the latter. As an aside, I have to report that is a source of great regret to Anthony that we do not live in Mamba territory!
In the final phase of constructing the lodge, we had a small team of chimney ‘cladders’ who had come in from Nairobi to put the finishing touches stonework in the lodge. Having driven through Nairobi national park and seen not only their first ever lion, but also a Rhino – these city slickers truly felt that they had gone totally ‘bush’ and when Anthony met them at the bridge they were quite apprehensive about their safety.
Anthony took them around all the rooms to show them where they would be working and had to dash out for a brief moment to capture a rather large reptile which had been spotted half way up the cliff. To most people, especially those who have little to no interest in nature, the idea of there being a snake in the vicinity would justify a mass evacuation from the premises. Our cladders were half way back across the bridge before Anthony caught up with them – six feet of Black-Necked spitting cobra clasped firmly in hand – and panting with the exertion of chasing down our small crew.
When I found them later, Anthony had persuaded them back into a room and was proceeding to explain – still clutching a vigourously-objecting snake – what needed to be done. All three men stood shoulder to shoulder to total attention, eyes wide, and appeared to be riveted by every word. I pointed out later to Anthony (who was rather pleased with himself that the crew had not only totally understood his instructions but were also now working at a speed that he had not expected) that the full attention from the crew was less to do with the quality of his instructions, and much more to do with him using the snake to illustrate his points.
Back to present day: I ‘ve just had another birthday and my challenge to Anthony – knowing full well that he would NEVER do this – was to get me my very own ‘Snake Grab- Stick’. Why I asked for this you may wonder. My thoughts were that he would never get this for me and I could use the fact that I had received no birthday present as leverage for far greater things. Unfortunately I had apparently made a dream come true (the two of us catching snakes side-by-side in perfect harmony)and the bloody thing arrived in the post a week later – much to my horror, and now not only did I have no leverage, but I was expected to use it!
Barely two weeks later, when Ann our Head of Rooms reported that she had seen a snake and it looked like a Cobra a very LARGE one (information of this sort when working in Kenya must be taken with a pinch of salt). You can imagine how quickly I leaped off my chair and ran the 200 meters to the site in order to capture it with my new grab-stick.
Unfortunately I took too long and Anthony got there before me. Actually …..10 minutes before me……thankfully! However, Anthony was delighted with my enthusiasm and promptly released the little cobra for me to catch – Ann, our head of rooms was as apprehensive as I was, standing right behind me and constantly breathing down my neck with the most unhelpful comments like ‘if this bites you Mama you will be very sick!!’ and ‘watch out, it can spit, Mama’. Eventually I did manage to capture and release this HUGE 25cm long baby cobra. I think it got so fed up with my being totally incapable that it eventually crawled onto the grab stick and sat there waiting for me to pick it up. We finally released it down river, in a lovely spot where there are no human visitors, and especially, no guests!
I think I have a whole new respect from the staff, or I may have lost it all! Either way, I am now the new ‘Mafundi ya Nyoka’ (snake expert) in town – a title that I am happy to accept as long as I don’t have to prove it again!
By the way – for those of you who have not seen this, check out our video that we filmed a few months ago showing what Naiorbi National Park has to offer!
