Creatures of the Night
So you’ve had a long day. It’s your last night in camp, and you have everything to pack up, but you do that after dinner, because during the day it was too hot to move, because of night sky photography, because of a hundred of other reasons to procrastinate and not take 15mins to pack.
Of course, when the time comes to pack, the feeling that leaving it till after dinner was not a good idea materialises - because of the wine, the late-night laughs, the coma inducing food.
It’s now 10pm and tomorrow, up at 4:30.
Fast forward 30mins, you’ve showered, brushed teeth, packed and checked everything was ready. It’s time to check the net for tsetse flies these little f*ckers seem to get through literally everything. And let me tell you, they have a hard bite. Swollen ankles (more so than usual - in France, if your ankles are swollen, it’s due to the size of your ego.. ;)) because for some reason, the tsetses loveeee that area. They’ll bite through clothes, through literally anything. And the bites just become red, angry, swollen, itchy patches. Yum.
So after one bit me on Day 1, that was it, they were all going to pay. Net inspection done, only one to get rid of, pretty good, I check the room quickly, a bit of Doom here and there (first time I’ve ever had to use it. Hate that stuff but with tsetses it’s the only thing that seems to work), and I smile with content.
Anyways. Moving on.
I say goodnight to the relatively large tree frog that shares me tent - love them, they eat the flies and mozzies. I wish I had geckos too, but they’re more picky roommates and stay outside.
I don’t know why, I decide to inspect the net again, on the side that was touching the bed. And I see a small centipede just crawling out across the sheets to the net.
Now I don’t know if you know what a centipede is. But after a horrific episode with a stowaway in my suitcase from Malawi (a story for another time - just imagine 30cm of centipede hell, blue legs and a lot of girth), I was a bit sensitive with them. Also they bite the poisonous type of bites and you just generally don’t want to be around them (unless you collect them and have them as pets, and if that’s your case, I admire your bravery. And question your sanity).
Anyways, it caught me unawares, and in desperation I tried Dooming it. It was a small one and clearly not as resilient as the one from Malawi. One down.
Because yes. I was now fully awake. It’s almost 11pm, and I’ve resorted to inspecting the bed sheets. Though I felt pretty confident - what was the probability of another being there? WELL GUESS AGAIN ALICE. Another small one comes crawling down.
By the time I get in the bed, can’t say I’m feeling too confident. Those of you who know me know I have a *bit* of an issue with wasps and bees, but I can’t say I’m passionate about Africa’s crawlies. Snakes fine, frogs, fine, lizards, fine. Spiders to an extent, fine. Centipedes, negative. Anyways. I try chilling and get comfortable in bed, roll around and jump out of my skin. Literally. Let out a little scream in the process. There, on the headrest of the bed, disappearing below - something with many legs, a lightish colour, thick, crawling from sight. All of this in the bed, under the mosquito net. Part of me doesn’t want to know what it is. The other part won’t sleep till I figure out what and where the thing went. So I breathe in, shine my torch under the mattress, half expecting a giant spider to jump at me (dramatic? me? what?). My pride refused that I call one of the night scouts for help - you go to the bush you deal with the bush (side note: I regretted that the next day after getting circa 2hours of sleep).
So I shine the torch, and see nothing (panic and relief at the same time). Then - movement. Reddish legs, disproportionate body, hard shell, pincers at the front. A solifuge. The creature of nightmares. It disappears in a gap under the mattress. But I can see that it just stayed in the bulge. Which means it can come out at anytime, as there was no other way back. I couldn’t reach the area to Doom it - and I didn’t want to crawl under the bed and breathe in that stuff anyway. So I tried to make a fort with my pillows (it was midnight, I was tired…) and put some music on to scare it away. I knew they were harmless but couldn’t remember if they bit/ pinched or not and I just didn’t want that thing near me.
a really resistent solifuge barrier
crying inside
Every so often, I’d wake up at night and shine my torch across the bed to check. You never know. Halfway through I dreamt it was crawling up me, woke up screaming in my sleep (super badass girl right here). It was maybe 3am, and I saw loads of torches running towards my tent. I thought the scouts had heard me, which added to the ridicule so I stayed stock still till they left. But they kept flashing their lights next to my tent, whispering amongst themselves. Embarrassing much?
I ended up surviving the night btw.
PS - the disturbance at 3am with the scouts? A leopard, hunting outside my tent. Talk about self-centred aha.