Creepy crawlies & other critters It wasn’t our only encounter with scorpions. As we sat around a campfire after an African game drive, a scorpion fell from a tree onto the guide sitting beside us. “No problem,” he said. “This species is not dangerous.” Minutes later, he swatted a tsetse fly that bit him. Showing it to us, he explained: “It can transmit sleeping sickness.” We hoped that our long-sleeved shirts diligently sprayed with insect repellent would protect us. (They did.) In Sri Lanka, a mosquito net draped around our rainforest hotel bed offered protection from malaria. After closing the net around us for the night, we glanced up and gasped. Dangling above us was a large, hairy spider. We couldn’t get out of bed fast enough. After we called reception, an employee arrived. His eyes widened as he looked at the spider. “One bite and…” he said, as he slid his finger across his neck. He disappeared, leaving us looking at each other with raised eyebrows. Returning minutes later with a broom, he whacked the critter after knocking it to the floor. We slept fitfully for the rest of the night. Months later, we were surprised to see a New Mexico park ranger holding a similar-looking spider. “The venom of North American tarantulas is not as toxic as that of Asian and African species,” he told us, “but they have barbed hairs that can irritate your skin or damage your eyes and nasal passages.” Dangerous creatures also live in the water. After our Amazon cruise ship docked near a beach, we decided to go swimming. The ship’s doctor told passengers, “The tan-coloured water by the beach is more hazardous than the nearby dark water. The tiny candiru fish that live in it have an affinity for urine. They can swim up the urethra and open their fins. The only way to remove them is by surgery.” We shuddered and cancelled our swims. We narrowly averted another medical emergency in the Amazon jungle after a villager urgently motioned us away from a large tree. Showing us a hard shell filled with Brazil nuts, he explained that it drops from the high branches like a cannonball. A falling shell killed a child the day before our visit. Another too-close-for-comfort moment occurred after an Amazon canoe tour. A lodge employee showed us a newspaper photo of a giant anaconda that was cut open, revealing the bodies of two fishermen. “Anacondas have also attacked monkeys around here,” he said. We suddenly realized that the large snakes lurked in the water where we were canoeing. Worse yet, some paddlers didn’t wear life-jackets. Tarantula Canoeing in the Amazon Tsetse fly CSANews | FALL 2020 | 17 Travel
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