reptile man.
“So there is this guy with some reptiles down the street, we could go see them,” Says the sarcastic Taylor as we lounge on picnic tables in the afternoon sun at the Orange Elephant backpacker in Addo. We decide to peel ourselves out of the sun, gather up some energy after our seven am game drive, and walk down the road with the Orange Elephant dog following our every step.
We walk up to what looks like the backyard of a man who might have a couple of snakes lying around somewhere. “This looks like something we might find in Alabama or something,” murmurs Laura. Stereotypes of Alabama aside, it did look like something someone might find in the backyard in the sticks somewhere in the U.S.
As it turns out, we were completely wrong. This reptile man had many reptiles and birds in proper containers, and was quite obsessed with and informed about them. He lead us into the snake shed, where stacks of snake tanks lined the walls and proceeded to open one of them and stick his bare hand inside, not even checking to see if his fingers were headed for the open mouth of a poisonous snake. He immediately started playing with his pet snakes, telling us how poisonous each one is, stories about them biting his friend, putting them in his mouth and irritating them almost to the point of the demise of one of his extremities.
We thought this man has to be clinically insane, but really, he is just passionate about what he does, and not many people can say that about what they do. He is also more successful than having some reptiles in his backyard, he is going to be on Animal Planet, which to me, is pretty damn successful.
He handed us snakes to hold, some of us were more phased and teary-eyed than others while the anacondas were draped around our necks. At first, I would not think to be the type of person to hold a snake with such assurance, not that my heart was not pumping so hard that the snake could probably see it coming out of my chest, but since I am in South Africa, since I get a chance to drape an anaconda around my neck, why not. If I die, I would get “mad street cred,” as Sam put it.
