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my millipede moment

One of our favorite things to do is sit around in camp, while having a meal or tea, and tell what I call "war stories". Most of these stories involve close encounters of the animal or insect kind. For instance: the time someone only realized they were being stalked by lions when they walked back to their research camp in the Serengeti (Tanzania) one night when they woke up the next morning and found lion footprints all around their tent. The time a hippo charged a car in the Semliki Valley (Zaire), knocking it clear into the air and leaving tusk marks. The time an elephant crashed through the bush in Tsavo National Park (Kenya) to charge a car, whose driver immediately started going backwards to avoid being 'tusked', inconveniently went through a big puddle which splashed onto the engine, which made the engine die - so the two people in the now-stalled car were faced with an ear-flapping, trumpeting, pretty pissed off elephant. Thankfully, the car started again, and they slowly backed away to safety. That's one of my own war stories, in fact - I was the passenger in the car, innocently sticking half of my body out of the roof rack and snapping photos of two other elephants fighting off in the bush before said charging elephant appeared. Close enounters with pachyderms are some of my least favorite varieties.

Thankfully, I haven't had any life-threatening non-mammal encounters, though there are snakes, scorpions, and solifuges (10 legged pincer-wielding pseudo-spiders that are super fast and can get as big as your hand) around. However, I do have my millipede moment. It was maybe the second night in camp this year, and I was reading in bed with my head lamp, getting ready to go to sleep. I kept feeling the tag of my sheets move against my arm, which was getting annoying. But suddenly, in my sleepy state, I realized that the wind wasn't strong enough to be doing that... so WHAT was moving against my arm that felt long and slimy?? Fearing a snake in my bed, I threw the covers back and saw a 4-5 inch long, slimy, red-legged... millipede. Still gross, still something I absolutely had to remove from my tent before I could get to sleep, but not a snake. PHEW! How did it get there? I often leave my tent open during the day so the breeze cools the air inside. So much so that others in camp give me grief for it. I think I've learned my lesson! I'm keeping my tent zipped up much more often now. :)

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