XII. Fake Snakes and Elephant Dung, Part Three

Beth glanced over my shoulder, “What’s Pascal got over there?”

Pascal was one of those adventurous young men annoyed by my mothering, always wandering off somewhere without me. He was squatting on a rock about fifty yards downstream. A cigarette dangling from his lips, a stick in his hand, he was poking at something lying next to him. Beth and I went to investigate. When we got close enough to see what it was, Beth froze. Pascal was poking at a cobra.

After never seeing any at all on the trails, we encounter two poisonous snakes on the same trek, the trek with the girl afraid of snakes. This had to be more than mere coincidence. This was practically a Cosmic Joke. Pascal, oblivious to the irony, or perhaps all too aware of it (one can never tell with the French), continued his poking. The cobra seemed to be taking it well, but I was fairly certain its good humor wouldn’t last much longer.

“Pascal,” I whispered, “Stop what you’re doing. Move away from the snake. Slowly.”

He turned to me with a well-practiced dismissive expression, then resumed.

“That’s a Cobra, you idiot!” I hissed, “Get away from there!”

He stood up, “I must have a photo!”

He jogged to his backpack and got a camera. He stepped in for a tight shot of the snake. It was too dangerous for him to be that close. I had to stop him. If he needed a photo, then by golly, it was my responsibility as the Jungle Guide to take it for him (it seemed to make sense at the time). I took his camera. As I focused in on the snake, I noticed one of Pascal’s cigarette butts lying next to it, spoiling the shot. I reached in to remove the butt. My hand was less than an inch away from the snake. At that moment, I looked up and saw the horrified expression on Beth’s face. That was when I fully realized what I was doing.

I always used to scoff when I heard stories about travelers traipsing around the world as though they were in some sort of protective bubble, immune from the environment. There were stories of blissfully ignorant Swiss hikers caught on erupting volcanoes, not believing that they were active, and of naïve Japanese safari tourists mauled by lions, just as they were flashing the peace sign for the camera. (The stories always seemed to involve the Swiss or Japanese.) Oh, how I scoffed. I scoffed and scoffed. Now, here I was, inches from death because of a cigarette butt, because I was a Jungle Guide with a misguided set of priorities, because I was just as idiotic as any Swiss or Japanese tourist.

I dropped the butt, slowly moved my hand out of frame, and backed away from the snake. I shoved the camera into Pascal’s hands, took him firmly by the arm and, ignoring his threats and complaints, escorted him and Beth away.