Cobras and Crocs

Though we were ready for the crocodiles, we got a lot more than we expected this last week at the Timothy Centre. On Thursday night after dinner, Kristen and I were sitting in our place and heard through our open window, rumours that there had been a spitting cobra that was found within our compound. It perked my interest, but it wasn’t enough of an interest to pull me out of my comfy blanket and jammies. But then a few minutes later we got a knock at our front door, and that was a definite reason to get dressed and go outside.

Apparently a few minutes before the knock on our front door, one of our visitors Ken was walking down to his own place, which is located by the guard station at the front gate. When the guard was coming out of the guard house a spitting cobra emerged from the bushes beside the stairs and lunged at the guard. For obvious reasons (as spitting cobras are deadly), the two men killed the snake and then left it on the ground for us to come and see it. When we got do the gate, the snake was dead and lying on the ground. Ken was picking up the dead snake and showing us how it was still moving because of muscle spasms, and somehow coaxed me into holding it. The first time I picked it up, the body of the snake where I had grabbed it started spasming and naturally, I freaked out and dropped it. Even though it was dead, it was still really gross that it was still moving between my fingers. All I could see in my head was the horror movie vision, where the dead snakes somehow comes alive and bites the unsuspecting victims. And because of my fear for snakes, it scared me even more. After a couple more minutes of coxing, and a lot of freaking out, I was actually able to pick it up. And naturally, I had to get a picture of this momentous occasion.

The next day we were treated to even more reptiles; we took the kids on a fieldtrip to the Crocodile Camp and Farm just a few minutes past the equator, and located on the shore of Lake Victoria. Despite the never-ending rain, the place was absolutely beautiful.

The first thing that greeted us when we arrived at the camp was a sign on the entrance gate that read “Uganda Crocs Limited; Trespassers will be Eaten”. The scary thing was I’m sure that they weren’t joking around. There were tons of crocodiles of all sizes and all ages at the camp. There were cages upon cages of giant smelly crocodiles. It was definitely not something that you would see at home; at home we have liability issues that probably wouldn’t allow anyone to have a place like this. It was in a way nerving because the crocodiles weren’t held in over secure cages. Each portion where the crocodiles were held were simply stone walls with barbed wire that was supposed to be along the top of the stone fences, but had fallen off and didn’t seem very useful. The most nerving part of this park is the portion that had the man eating crocodiles. These crocodiles were MASSIVE, and were also just kept within stone walls. To add to this, along these stone walls there were also raised platforms so that you could see into the cages. It was kind of scary knowing that it wouldn’t take much for someone to fall into the cage where the man eating crocodiles were slumbering. The guide told us all about the man eating crocodiles, and the records that they held. One of the crocodiles boasted a record of had eaten at least 83 people within his lifetime. Once I was able to get over the initial nerves it was actually interesting to see all the crocodiles, but I felt much better when we got away from these enclosures.



And next came the adventurous part of the day. The tour guide at one point jumped into one of the pits and took out a crocodile that was a couple years old. He was still a baby, but was probably about three or four feet long. He offered out the opportunity for us to hold the baby crocodile, and I figured that I had held the dead cobra the night before, why not hold the very alive baby crocodile today. It actually wasn’t that bad, and when held correctly the crocodile wasn’t able to move in your hands. Even though it had just been taken out of the water, the crocodile’s skin felt dry and coarse. It’s hard to explain what it felt like because I was too petrified to really remember the details. But I do remember that it was really amazing to be able to hold something like this. It’s definitely not something that one would be able to do back home in Canada so why not take every opportunity to do something a little crazy while I’m here in Uganda.

And if Camp Crocs wasn’t enough for one day, the Danish café now has a new addition to its backyard pond: Speedy the turtle. It wasn’t a baby crocodile, but I still got to hold the little turtle.  

I am proud to say that I have now done two more things that I don’t know if I would have ever done before. Only in Africa.