Twigger, about to get married, needed a goal, and his roommate solved his problem by discovering there was a $50,000 award being offered by the Wildlife Conservation Society of New York to anyone who could bring back a live snake over thirty feet long. (Seems a rather bizarre award for a conservation society, but then what do I know?) Anacondas, the snake one usually thinks of as being large, rarely exceed eighteen feet in length, so the python seemed the best bet and they live in southeast Asia. Twigger is one of those travel writers who engage your interest telling a seemingly irrelevant story chocked full of information. The python, for example, can be rather disgusting. When asked the worst thing about pythons, a snake expert Twigger consulted replied, “When they shit on you. It can be very liquid, white urea mixed with black faeces. Sometimes they spray it all over you, very pungent. And a fifteen foot python can produce a lot of crap.” It also takes at least a twenty-five-foot snake to eat a man. “But if it did, there’d be nothing left except your gold fillings and maybe your wristwatch.” The last-ditch protection against an attacking snake is to ram snuff down its throat. The nicotine is absorbed almost instantly by the snake’s chemo-receptive Jacobsen’s organ and the snake dies almost instantly.
Now, think about that. That’s really useful information. In any case, off Twigger trots for Kawala Lampur and Buru, where he meets and describes the local villagers in his quest for the big one. Often the hunt for the snake takes second place to his travelogue of the jungles, but his descriptions of local customs, food, and the impact of logging on local communities is entertaining and informative. The result of the hunt I will leave for you to discover. I did find it anticlimactic, however.
