Snakes in South Africa

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While I lived in Benoni, Transvaal, in the 60's, I took it upon myself to pick up all the ringhals (spitting cobras) marooned around Homestead dam, a lake that had become encircled by suburbs.
Funny things, they always signal when they are going to strike, but you should wear glasses because they spit venom. Often, to escape, they play dead, twisting over upside down with their mouth pushed to one side. If you turn one back over gently, it will insist on being "dead" and roll back upside down again. I got to like them.
A few years later, I stayed at a rough hotel while working at a steelworks, but went catching most weekends. I came back one evening with a snake box (like a small suitcase with prominent warning stickers) and stopped for a snack in the restaurant.
The owner started mocking my "lunch box" as pretentious, and ignored my telling him it had two snakes inside. I shook it, but he then accused me of making the hissing sound myself and told me to open it - if there were snakes inside, my coffee and sandwich were free!
I opened the lid and up popped two very angry ringhals with their hoods out and making a hell of a din.
Have you ever seen a restaurant with the entire clientele and staff, four deep, all trying to get out through a doorway together........
 
Lots of cape cobras around my previous house, one inside the house under the dining table. Killed them all with my .38 Spl and shot shells. They catch cape cobras in the middle of Cape Town. Every year people get killed by that highly dangerous snake.
 
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Python on hippo hunt 2017. He had just come out of the reeds next to the water.
 
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Black Momba crossing the road during 2015 elephant hunt. Plenty of snakes in South Africa. And this was the 1st of August.
 
While I lived in Benoni, Transvaal, in the 60's, I took it upon myself to pick up all the ringhals (spitting cobras) marooned around Homestead dam, a lake that had become encircled by suburbs.
Funny things, they always signal when they are going to strike, but you should wear glasses because they spit venom. Often, to escape, they play dead, twisting over upside down with their mouth pushed to one side. If you turn one back over gently, it will insist on being "dead" and roll back upside down again. I got to like them.
A few years later, I stayed at a rough hotel while working at a steelworks, but went catching most weekends. I came back one evening with a snake box (like a small suitcase with prominent warning stickers) and stopped for a snack in the restaurant.
The owner started mocking my "lunch box" as pretentious, and ignored my telling him it had two snakes inside. I shook it, but he then accused me of making the hissing sound myself and told me to open it - if there were snakes inside, my coffee and sandwich were free!
I opened the lid and up popped two very angry ringhals with their hoods out and making a hell of a din.
Have you ever seen a restaurant with the entire clientele and staff, four deep, all trying to get out through a doorway together........

I really laughed reading this!!
 

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