Virtual Sumatra Introduces Nick Point
Hey and wuzzup world!?
Nick Point here. C.N. as my folks call me. Ranger Bill asked me to fill you all in on some of the main points of the rainforest trek since I was one of the dangerous dudes on last year's excellent adventure. So here goes. Some of you radical trekkies wrote asking about things like how dangerous is the jungle and how much blood do the leeches extract in one sitting, etc. Since I have personal and detailed accounts of every slippery, slimy muddy path and obnoxious biting creature in the forest, you have come to the right place for the true story. Only thing is, I am a dude of few words and I am already running out so I have decided to limit myself, to conserve precious energy, to one tale per mail. Let's get to the gory details first.
Image scanned from: Nicholls, John G. The Search for Connections: Studies of Regeneration in the Nervous System of the Leech. Sinauer Associates, 1987.
The topic is the leech. The ONLY way to survive the trail to your chosen end in one piece with all your red corpuscles intact is to wrap yourself in a colorful batik sarong, smear mosquito repellant all over yourself, and then douse your body in tobacco juice. That will keep the hounds and leeches at bay. It's a nasty business, but better if you are the one to chew up the raw tobacco leaves (you don't want alien spit on you, do you?). Just don't make the mistake of swallowing any of the disgusting brown juice or you will be dealing with Batak Belly instead of leeches. Forget wearing the Jungle Jim shorts and socks and Ranger Rick hiking boots- bare footin is the only way to run. Then instead of the leeches slidin into your socks and munchin out on your tender flesh, you can spot them and watch them die of a nicotine fit as they try to chow down on your ankle bone. If they get through your defenses, they have the nasty habit of gorging on your blood until they have had enough and their fat bellies burst or they fall off along the jungle trail in a happy stupor. You see, they have this chemical in their spit that doesn't let your blood coagulate so you end up bleeding into your sock long after they're gone.
This guy on our trip was a kick- his sock was soppin red and he was
sitting in a thatched roof shack eating a banana while one finger was
applying pressure to his squirting wound! When he stopped to peel the banana
some more, he'd let go of the wound and the blood would squirt out some more.
We called him Super Dave! Actually, the leeches are just these little dink
things, about two inches long (I don't know how many centimeters for you
metric types) that wiggle around like inchworms (centimeter worms?). If you
hold up your index finger and wiggle it around you get an idea of what I'm
talkin about ( just don't let anyone see you!). You can't hardly tell head
from tail, but sure enough they can chomp down and hold on like a bullrider-
I like to fool them and let them try to bite my fingernail. They make great
pets as long as you can find their favorite food.
This one girl got a little leech on her neck that Mr. Cason (alias Ranger Bill) pulled off with some superhuman effort and saved her life. It didn't even bleed or bite her, but she acts to this day like he saved her life and she is so proud of her close encounter. Mr. C is her hero but he just says it's all in a day's work as he chews up more tobacco to wipe on her neck. The local Batak people mix cloves with the tobacco- they call their cigarettes kereteks- and it always reminds me of ham for some reason. Awful tasting stuff! Everyone smokes over there so I guess health education is not part of their local curriculum. Back to leeches. They just lie in wait for you for years and when you get close they can smell you and it gets their anti-coagulant juices flowing. Most of the time you don't even know they're there, until you see your white sock is no longer white. It's feast or famine in the rainforest. You may be the only meal they'll ever get, and they don't ask for your blood type either! But you better know in case you need a transfusion!
Anyway, I've said all there is to say on the subject so unless some of you out there in the real world can add to the lowdown on leeches, I'll close by saying...a leech a day keeps the doctor away. If you ever, ever encounter a bloodsucking leech exploring your body in the depths of the deepest rainforest, tickle it under the chin with a tobacco-stained finger and it will back off quickly ( you might notice a look of terror and dismay on its face) and hang out quietly in a nearby bush for the next Sumatran trekker to pass.
That's it for now from me, the original bushman,
C. Nick.