1. Attack of the Leeches

    Posted in: Photography on Saturday, November 20th, 2010


    The blood sucker goes for the jugular

    Today I went trekking through the rainforest in Borneo’s Danum Valley hunting for orangutans with my camera.  About ten minutes into the hike it was clear I was the one being hunted, and rather successfully.   The leeches, which were everywhere, were celebrating and shouting, “Fresh meat coming through.”   I lost count after pulling at least 20 of them off my clothes and body.  My guide Ben spotted one on my neck and yelled,”there’s a there’s a blood sucking leech going for your jugular.”  Some of the sarcastic among you may be asking, “Boyd what was my ex doing in Borneo?, but this was in fact a tiger leech.  In the photo you can see the blood continued to flow after the leech was removed.

    When I got back to the room, I found one last  leech hiding under my shirt.  After pulling him  off, the bleeding continued for another 3 hours.  I had to gaffer tape a half a roll of toilet paper to the wound to absorb all the blood, but   I did earn my official Danum Valley blood donor certificate as a result.  I’ll leave it to your imagination to guess which part of my body this is in the photo.

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  2. Snakes in the Trees

    Posted in: Photography on Thursday, November 18th, 2010

    Snakes On A Tree! Sounds like a movie sequel to me.

    We went for a night hike last night in Borneo and saw several pit vipers in the trees.  My guide was unconcerned, because the snakes were in the trees a foot above his head, but for me that was hairline high.  To compensate I did most of the hike stooped over as low as posssible.

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