World Wild Vet Read online

  The guides and I packed our supplies, all of which we had to carry on our backs. I had all the essentials I needed to survive, look for animals, and document the trip, plus a few medications—most importantly, steroids. I’m exceptionally sensitive to poison ivy and poison oak, and I never know what sorts of similar allergens I’ll come across in distant jungles on the other side of the world.

  Interestingly, nothing I’ve encountered in the developing world rivals the potency of the poison ivy in the backyard of my childhood home. One touch of that plant and I’m a rashy, itchy mess.

  So three guys go into the jungle and two of them speak Khmer and not a word of English or Spanish. One (me) speaks only English and un pequeño Spanish. This is something I was starting to get used to in my travels, but it takes patience and goodwill on both sides of any exchange to make it work. We communicated with hand signals and facial gestures and occasional full-body charades, but we figured it out.

  To reach the starting point of our trek, we rode for twenty minutes in a truck, which dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. The three of us then rode on the backs of motorbikes for another hour, into the heart of the bush. From there we were on foot. It felt like the farthest I had ever been from civilization—and that’s saying something for a guy who had been to Ecuador’s Amazon and Panama’s Darién Gap.

  Each day we hiked ten to fifteen miles, using hand signals as we went. The trails were limited and not well maintained, so we spent a lot of time bushwhacking our way through with machetes.

  The Cardamom Mountains have a classic tropical rain-forest climate—which means high humidity and blistering heat—and this trip brought new meaning to my idea of living off the land. Luckily for me, I was traveling with two men who had wildlife skills to rival Bear Grylls’s. I consider myself a good hiker, probably better than most Westerners. I rarely slip and fall in rough terrain; I can trek all day without complaint. But these guys made me look like a rank amateur. They moved effortlessly through the jungle, making their way across some of the most rugged terrain I’d ever seen. I straggled behind, getting stuck in the mud, being whacked and scratched by the brush, and sweating so much I teetered on the verge of major dehydration. All the while, I was wearing quality hiking boots and my compadres were wearing jelly sandals. At one point I offered to send them boots when I got back to the States. They both laughed—as if anything I had to offer could possibly make them more adept out in the jungle. I’m pretty sure the last thing they wanted was a pair of big clunky boots to slow them down. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.

  Every day we had to ford water in one place or another, and each time we emerged from a stream or river or swamp, the upshot was the same: leeches clinging to our legs and feet. They easily made their way into my hiking boots, even plastering themselves between my toes.

  With that in mind, the end of each day went something like this: An hour before sundown, we’d reach our camping spot and I would sit on a log or a stone and start scraping hundreds of leeches off my legs and feet. In the time it took me to complete that one simple task, the two guides would remove their own leeches, hang hammocks, dig a fire pit, get a flame going, and build a shelter for our provisions. By the time I looked up from my last leech each night, there were ramen noodles boiling in water and a little pocket of order in whatever nook of the jungle they’d chosen for us. These guys were the real deal, and I have zero doubt they could have survived in that jungle indefinitely on nothing but their resourcefulness and their wits.

  On one stifling afternoon, we were hiking in an open grassland area adjacent to a thick wall of forest. One of the guides spotted a vine snake and hissed my name to get my attention. These things are gorgeous. They’re tree-dwelling snakes, bright green with elongated faces. They distinguish themselves by always sticking their tongues out, as if to say, “Stay away from me.” This one was five feet long and very slender. From side to side, it wasn’t even an inch wide—like a great green slithering ribbon.

  Technically, vine snakes have a mild venom, although it doesn’t do much more than subdue their prey. Generally it won’t adversely affect a human unless you’re allergic to it. Fortunately for me, I wasn’t.

  I was admiring this beautiful snake, taking pictures and shooting video, talking about it to the camera. I was also continually trying to teach the guides—so incredibly adept at managing in the jungle but woefully lost in handling my equipment—how to film me. Our interaction would have looked like a comedy routine to anyone watching as we pantomimed taking pictures, shooting video, holding the snake, and capturing the right angle to make the best use of the light.

  Just after I finished recording and set the snake free, the guides started talking to each other really fast, in lower voices than usual. I could sense that something wasn’t right, that they were concerned. Their eyes were wide, and it was clear that they were nervous.

  As I glanced from one to the other, I finally heard what they’d already detected: the crackle of sticks and branches snapping in the distance. It sounded like somebody was hacking their way through the forest. Given that we were basically in no-man’s-land, I wondered what or who it could be. Was it developers scoping out the area?

  The commotion had been faint at first, but it became more pronounced as its source grew closer. The guides crouched down behind two large bushes. One of them motioned for me to take cover, too, so I ducked behind a tangle of foliage. I was starting to get worried. From what I’d seen so far, these guys weren’t afraid of anything.

  The three of us stayed crouched down as the ruckus got louder. The cracking of branches was getting more aggressive, as if whole trees were being knocked down. I was starting to think maybe we should make a run for it, rather than hunkering down to wait for whatever was coming our way.

  Of course, it was already too late. The ground was shaking, and we had obviously run out of time to clear out. And then, BOOM! A massive bull elephant burst into the open about fifty yards from us. This guy was in full rampage mode, crushing everything in his path at an all-out charge. I don’t scare easily, but I think my heart may actually have missed a beat in that moment. The big fern-like plant I was squatting behind quaked. I watched in total fascination, paralyzed by awe and fear, knowing beyond any doubt that if that elephant turned my way, I was a dead man.

  The magnificent beast was moving at about thirty miles per hour, and he mercifully kept going in a straight line, obliterating everything in his path—which we weren’t on. Even though their vision isn’t the sharpest, elephants have a great sense of smell. If he’d been interested in us, the bull could likely have picked up our scent from as far as a mile away. Luckily for us, he had something else on his mind that day.

  When the elephant was gone, I glanced over at the guides. They looked like they’d seen a ghost—a six-ton, mad-as-hell powerhouse of a freaking ghost. Neither of them moved, so I didn’t, either. We stayed in our hiding places for another ten minutes, until the sound of the elephant had completely faded away.

  * * *

  No other experience in Cambodia could hold a candle to that heart-stopping encounter with the bull elephant, but when I think of that trek, there is one more indelible memory I carry with me and have vowed not to repeat.

  As it turned out, we didn’t boil enough water to get us home on the last day of our hike. Every previous day had been partly overcast, but this one was full sun. I hope I will never be as dehydrated again as I was late that afternoon as we made our way back to civilization on a different route from the one we’d taken on the way out. The return trip took us across long stretches of farmland. I knew I was in trouble when I stopped and longingly contemplated the filthy water in a man-made ditch in a cattle field. I knew I couldn’t drink it, but a cow-water enema was not off the table. The colon is such a bacterial cesspool anyway that it can handle a little filthy water and hydrate the body from the back end up. I mimed to one of the guides, asking how much longer while pointing to the water and then to the
sun. He shook his head. No. Maybe he was just telling me not to drink it, but I took his advice on faith. The two of them had kept me safe through a week in the mine-ridden mountains, and so it seemed a safe bet to trust him a little longer.

  An hour later, I was sitting in a chair with a fresh cup of water, both the adventure and the dehydration coming to an end. I thanked my guides, repacked my gear, and got ready for the boat/bus/plane trip back to Colorado, where another year of veterinary school was waiting.

  7

  Indonesia

  Quick litmus test to see if you’re packing for leisure or adventure:

  Will you need your spitting cobra eye protection?

  As I scanned the gear piled on my bed in the fall of 2013, I knew I was getting ready for an epic adventure. It started with the everyday stuff: daypack and backpack (no suitcases), cargo shorts and boots (wear ’em together), swim trunks, cameras, camping air mattress, palm-sized sleeping bag, flashlights, headlamp, batteries. Check, check, check.

  And then the good stuff: telescoping snake hook, homemade telescoping croc snare, bush knife, machete, rope, pillowcase (for snake relocation, not for a pillow), antibiotics, passport, vaccination record.

  Venom-repelling eyewear.

  The gear was in piles, organized alongside half a dozen purple Crown Royal bags. I’m not sure when I realized they were the perfect size for adventure packing, but ever since then I’ve been adding to my collection. I worked hard in college, but I wasn’t a saint.

  The last item I laid out was something I’d never packed before: a stethoscope. After four years of keeping my head down, working my buns off, and getting through more and harder academic work than I’d ever thought I was capable of, I was about to take my first trip as a bona fide veterinarian. I intended to find opportunities to proudly use that stethoscope. I wanted to have fun and get dirty and explore, but I also felt that this time I had something new to offer.

  I’d wanted my first trip after vet school to be far away and exotic, somewhere with jungle and amazing animals, somewhere I could spend the entire ten weeks off I’d negotiated when I got my first DVM job and experience something new every day.

  For someone spinning a globe with all that in mind, it’s impossible to find a more fitting destination than Southeast Asia in general, and Indonesia in particular. The country is vast, complex, and packed with wildlife. It’s composed of more than seventeen thousand islands and is home to over 260 million people, who manage to communicate with one another even though they speak hundreds of different languages. The Indonesian Archipelago is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire—a dynamic geographic belt that boasts three-quarters of the world’s volcanoes and a staggering 90 percent of its earthquakes. It’s got mountains; it’s got beaches; it’s got forests and swamps and plains. Most importantly to me, it’s got the biggest expanse of rain forest in Asia.

  So. Much. Jungle.

  Indonesia’s wildlife is just as exotic and untamed as much of its geography, and it’s home to several rare species, among them tigers, pygmy elephants, orangutans, and tree kangaroos. It has some of the world’s most endangered crocodiles, countless gorgeous and highly venomous snakes, and massive marine and freshwater turtles. It also has the world’s largest and deadliest lizard: the Komodo dragon. Meeting one of these beauties face-to-face had been a dream of mine ever since I was a reptile-and-dinosaur-obsessed little kid. I mean, dragons. Does it get any better than that?

  It seemed fitting that Tim, the friend who went with me for much of my last-hurrah-before-vet-school trip, should attend the I-survived-vet-school bash, and we were both able to clear our schedules for another adventure. Every year this becomes more of a challenge, and I realize how lucky we’ve been to have times in our lives when we could go out and see the world together.

  Komodo Island Life

  Komodo Island is a relatively closed ecosystem, meaning its unique combination of wildlife is different from that found anywhere else in the world—even on the surrounding islands. That ecosystem played heavily into the evolution of the Komodo dragon. These massive lizards have grown to be large (150-plus pounds) and in charge because there are no predators to compete against them. As a result, the island is one of the few places on earth where lizards have assumed the role of apex predator. They are masters of their domain. And their confidence helps make it easy for the dragons to become habituated to all kinds of other creatures, even humans. That’s how it happened that a few were just sitting on the open sand, basking in the sun, when our boat arrived at the island.

  Maybe it was the days of planes, buses, and boats it took to get there and the resulting straight-up exhaustion, but when I spotted the dragons, I actually got a little choked up. I’d waited twenty-five years and traveled nine thousand miles to have that experience, and it was happening. I tried to stay cool as we checked in at the ranger station, but inside I felt like a little kid who’s wished and pined for something completely out of reach and finally, against all odds, gets it.

  Most people spend only a day on the island, since there’s not much in the way of overnight accommodations, but Tim and I had a different agenda. The only habitation on Komodo is for the rangers, who spend a week or two at a time maintaining the park and taking tourists on guided walks; however, through some combination of my veterinary credentials, wildlife experience, and unbridled enthusiasm, I’d worked out a deal with them to let us stay a few nights. Tim and I would pay to sleep in vacant employee housing and be included in the rangers’ meals.

  Our quarters were a wooden A-frame hut on stilts that had just one thing in it: an ancient, holey, full-sized mattress with foam and springs protruding from it, numerous stains, and the odor of decades of sweat baked in by the heat. It was just the kind of situation where that palm-sized sleeping bag comes in handy—it could never keep anybody warm, because it’s basically just a silk sheet, but it creates a barrier between body and bed. In any case, the sleeping arrangements were irrelevant to me. I’d have slept on the floor of the latrine if it meant I could camp among the dragons. One mantra of the intrepid pursuer of rare and remote wildlife experiences: I can shower later.

  The living conditions gave me a lot of respect for the hardworking locals who served as rangers. An assignment on Komodo Island is not a cushy job.

  A note about the stilts: they’re there to make sure no dragons wander in. These creatures wouldn’t necessarily set out to kill a guy in his sleep, but food is food. Remember the apex-predator thing. To a Komodo dragon, every living creature gets assessed for suitability as a meal—and they’re not terribly particular about what fits the bill when they’re hungry.

  Watching these lizards in their native territory was even better than I’d been imagining all my life. They mosey around with a wide, knuckle-dragging, swaying gait—one that’s generally so slow and lumbering you’d think they’d never catch a meal. But pity the fool—deer, water buffalo, snake, or even man—who underestimates one of these creatures when it’s hungry. The lumbering—and willingness to lie in wait—allow the dragon to get close enough that when it turns on the speed and runs—up to thirteen miles per hour—there’s not a big gap to close. Seeing one take off with its big, chunky legs suddenly whirring is like watching a cat swim or a turkey fly—they can do it, but it’s always kind of a surprise.

  At its top pace, a dragon could potentially overpower some of its prey animals with its weight and strength, but that’s not usually how they go about their business. That technique wouldn’t play to their strengths, since they don’t have the stamina or speed to chase their typical prey, like deer, over significant distances. Instead of aiming to conquer their victims at once, the dragons just try to get in at least one bite. The bacterial colonies in the mouths of these lizards are seriously dangerous, probably the most septic mouths of any animal, and so one bite—combined with the inevitable exposure to stagnant water and the other bacteria in any nonsterile environment—can almost guarantee sepsis and a slow, painful death.


  The progression from bite to full-body lethal infection can take a few days. Where is the dragon during that time? Stalking. Waiting. The dragon knows the drill, and knows that it takes time. Once the prey is near death, the dragon will start feeding. And yeah, that’s near death. It is the final insult of being killed by one of these formidable creatures that it may decide to eat you alive.

  It may also invite its friends. Komodo dragons are unique among lizards in that they feed in groups. Most predatory lizards—even other monitor species—hunt and consume only food they can fit in their mouths whole. But the dragon’s prey animals are often huge, like deer or buffalo, and as many as a dozen dragons sometimes share a single large-animal meal. This surprising cooperation within the species is yet another adaptation of evolving in an environment where there’s no competition for the top of the food chain. That sense of community has its limits, though. When food is scarce, the dragons are not above turning to cannibalism to survive—and for better or worse, that’s something they have in common with other monitor species.

  The dragons are so habituated to the presence of rangers and ecotourist visitors—and so confident in their roles as island kings—that they hardly flinch when approached at a respectful distance. Their fearlessness gave me the opportunity to capture some of my favorite wildlife photos to date. We followed them for hours, all over the island, me talking about them, trying to understand and mimic their movements, observing how they interact with one another—and Tim manning the camera.

  That evening, after a meal of rice, canned sardines, and green beans with the rangers, we settled in our wooden hut. A big part of me wanted to explore the island at night, but for safety reasons that’s frowned upon. We were exhausted anyway, so we curled up on the gnarly mattress, ready to call it a night.