North of Dar es Salaam, Pande Forest Reserve, Bagamoyo, Kongowe and Bunju, 4th September 2005
 

Hans-Jakob and Henrik (text by Hans, except one of the inserts)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Having a short break somewhere outside of Dar es Salaam

 

 

 

 

 


It is true...The Kawasaki really has this weird 'green' bush colour

 

 

 

 

 


Damn dufficult to get pass that Honda - head almost hurting...

 

 

 

 

Disappeared, but came back. No touching! Henrik

 

Also without touching the ground! Hans

 

Did he touch the ground this time? Hans

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Encounter with a Black Mamba

Hans Most people fear snakes – no matter what type of species. Africans seem petrified by snakes and ‘a good snake is a dead snake’. Certainly, I respect snakes, but direct fear - I wouldn’t say that I FEAR them…

No other species of snake is more feared in Africa than the ‘Black Mamba’ and it probably has some of the most amazing stories of any species of snake attached to its name. However, it IS the longest venomous snake in the world (after the King Cobra), reaching lengths of 3-4 meters. The Black Mamba is also the fastest snake in the world with recorded speeds of up to 23 km/hr.

Riding this late afternoon on the final leg of the 240 km roundtrip some 35 km outside Dar es Salaam, between Kibaha and Bunju, I was for a few minutes that day in front of my fellow rider Henrik. The Kawasaki was doing well, I wanted to get back home and the speed was good... Blazing over a small hilltop the road was straight and now continuing downhill, steep embankments with 5-10 meter tall bush on both sides of the road...

Ahhhhhh, it had been a while since I saw the army ants creating what seemed like a log-sized traverse on the road up ahead... getting closer I thought, well, so it was a fallen log after all...

I realised way too late that the ‘army-ant-come-fallen-log’ was in fact a snake... and a big one too... easily stretching the width of the dirt road, it honestly must have been between 3-4 meters and about as thick in the middle as a Kilimanjaro bear bottle... bloody Nora, a second before I passed it, it moved and with incredible speed it kind of lunged itself round and up in the air - I swear that its head was higher than the seat of my bike the moment I passed it!!!

I was certain that it was going to lunge into my arm or leg for having surprised it like that... Now, days later, I’m in no doubt ‘who spooked who’... The amazement of snakes has grown and the many tales of the Black Mamba seem so much more credible now - that it can raise its head and front ‘body’ substantially above the ground... THAT IS A FACT!!!!!!!!

It would have taken a damn brave Tanzanian to take on the MONSTER of that late afternoon and fulfil the saying of ‘a good snake is a dead snake’...

Henrik (After seeing out of a corner of an eye in a glimpse of a second that Hans had passed a snake) Wow! Hans almost got a snake... Now I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna kill that thing. Then I can take a look at it. After I'm 100 that it's dead.

(Seconds later, being just in front of it:) It's getting a bit lively there on the side in front of me. Snakes are supposed to be ON the ground... Oh, this is a really BIG and angry thing...

Now using the handlebars to try to steer out of trouble... I managed not to touch it. And not being touched by it.

Explanation: I am really scared of ALL kinds of snakes ('cus I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between one and another), and I dislike them for a thousand reasons, so feeling quite secure, on the big bike with big boots and so, and standing up and speeding, I was so sure it couldn't harm me... until, I saw how big it actually was, and how vigourously and high up it swung itself into the air...

Happy I didn't meet Nemesis that day...

 

 

 

 

 

Back home, half an hour before darkness