I have still seen no lions… or remarkable animals of any sort. But, upon returning from Mabute (about 3 hours from here)… I can assure you that the bug population is alive and thriving here in Mozambique. As the title suggests… this is going to be about bugs… so if that grosses you out, please x out now, I won’t be offended.
We saw the natural habitat of the oversized cockroach… rarely used toilets. Colleen had a horror movie caliber experience when she called for help and Jaco showed up with the bug killing spray… sending the masses running out of the walls.
Our first night there we thought it was raining… until we woke up the next morning to discover that the ground was dry and our “rain” was just insects diving onto our tents.
Lindsey awoke one night to what looked like a finger stroking the underside of her tent. After beating it with her crocks she realized it was just a huge bug.
My new award for most fascinating and most disgusting bug goes to the dung beetle. These things are so fascinating… in a “don’t get too close to anything that has dung in its name” kind of way. They have a loud buzz and are so big that they really could be considered small aircraft. And they push huge balls of, well, dung that are 4 or 5 times the size of their bodies using their back legs to create a circus worthy handstand stunt. Seriously though, any bug that literally hoards crap must have some ecological purpose that is out of my knowledge base. During our morning prayer time a dung beetle pushing a ball of dung twice his size came rolling through our circle and almost nailed Jackie in the foot. It wasn’t our most reverent prayer… but possibly our most memorable.
There seemed to be proportionally less bugs as our time went on there… Then, as we were packing up we discovered that they were all residing under our tents. A centipede, a huge beetle, an egg sac that looked like a tea bag, 2 scorpions, and 2 snakes later… all 6 tents were finally packed up and ready to head back home.
