Wake up on top of a snake

And other reasons to travel

I once woke up on top of a snake.

I wasn’t in danger, and neither was she. He? I forgot to check. At the time, my expertise included being able to sex snakes—that is, to ascertain what sex they are—without too much embarrassment for either me or the snake. In this case, though, I didn’t do it.

I was in the middle of a five-month field season on Nosy Mangabe, a tiny island off the east coast of Madagascar, which is itself a massive island off the east coast of Africa. The vast majority of species on Madagascar are found nowhere else on the planet. On the island with me were two Malagasy “conservation agents,” who lived in a miniscule cabin and whose job it was to clear trails and monitor the occasional comings and goings of fishermen in wooden pirogues and sailors in decrepit boats laden with cloves. Nosy Mangabe was a nature reserve, and nobody without permits was supposed to make landfall there, but sailors often came on land.

I was in Madagascar trying to decipher the sex lives of poison frogs, but I got a lot more education than that. The first time that I happened upon a group of naked sailors bathing in a stream, I was as surprised to see them as they were to see me. I did not break stride. Continuing down the trail, I heard rustling behind me, and looked back to find the four men, still quite naked, tip-toeing behind me. They all leapt behind trees when I looked back, in a failed attempt to hide themselves, which was more amusing than worrisome. I felt like they were no threat to me. Luckily, I was right.