Souvenirs of Life

This is my atlas, my maps of experiences.

My travelling is not about romance, it is a passion.

Stories of trips that impressed me, wishes I can cross out of my bucketlist, a single photo that means so much to me, I want the world to see.

Written and photographed by REPTILICIOUS.NL

Night Jungle Canoe trip It is a warm clammy evening in the middle of the Surinamese jungle, close to the Brazilian border. At night the craziest animals start to make incredible noices, eyes light up and you feel like you are being watched. We are getting ready for a boattrip by night, besides the intendent and two Indians, we are all by ourselfs, no village for miles, no electricity, only headlights, cameras and a torch.

You need to watch your step, because of the huge amount of giant toads, also known as cane toads, looking like big jumping stones. Fireflies are dancing their nightly fire dance, as we are walking through the field to our canoe, made of a hollowed-out trunk. This fairy-like act becomes rough disturbed as we are face to face with a creepy crawler, a very hairy spider, the pinktoe tarantula (Avicularia avicularia).

When we arrive at the river, we find the canoe being overflowed by the heavy rain in the afternoon. One of the Indians jumps in to the water to spoon the water out of the canoe. The small wooden stairs to get in to the canoe is under water and we have to climb over slippery rocks with our cameragear above our heads.

Picture this, cayman on the shore, snakes above our heads and piranhas and anjumaras (wolf fish) in the water and we are in a canoe with 6 people in complete darkness and the edge of the canoe is just 10 cm above the water. We better do not move to one side of the canoe all in once.

Headlights are on and we see many green iguanas sleeping on branches that hang above the water.

During daytime the iguanas are very hard to find.

As we are boating suddenly we see something green between the leaves of a tree, that just don’t fit in. So we turn the canoe and we can see a green snake, but we can not see its head. Could it be a green emerald tree boa?

The intendent says he has never seen one in this area for more then 10 years. The snake is too high in the tree so we move to shore to pick up a long stick. After some balance excercises in the canoe, we can pull down the branche with the snake on it. And yes, it is a green emerald tree snake (Corallus caninus), how lucky can you get! We went off board to get a closer look at this snake and it turns out to be a very healthy, well fed snake and no ticks on its body. Green emerald do have the reputation of being biters and this one is no exception. Before we let him go back in to the dense vegetation, we put it on a clear branche to take some pictures and videos.

After this highlight of our nighttrip we return back to our camp. And as a perfect round up, we have a close encounter with an amazon tree boa (Corallus hortulanus)!

Herping The Philippines are an archipel where green is still to be found in the villages and also a lot of rainforest.

The Philippines are home to cobras, reticulated pythons, monitor lizards, tokay geckos, flying dragons, mangrove snakes and much more. House geckos and tokay geckos can be found almost anywhere, however jungle herping in the Philippines is not easy.

Comparing to other Asian countries, tourism is still low tide in the Philippines, but growing fast. Most tourism is focused on the underwater world, which is also very spectacular. Searching for reptiles and amphibians is not yet very common to do in the Philippines and jungle trekking is only available for hiking, biking and other outdoor activities. Many parts of forests are protected from palm oil industry and also because of this, it is not always allowed to just go into any part of the forest. You need to have government permission to enter a protected area.

The rough landscape does not make it any easier. Steep mountains and hills without a decent path require a good physical condition. In the Philippines you never know when you will have a close encounter with a venomous repile while herping. Many times you will be climbing with a ravine next to you, so you really need to be careful and be an experienced herper. Once you find Philippians who share your interest of reptiles and amphibians, herping does become possible. In coming blogs I will share our experiences of the herp trips in the Philippines.

Mangrove snakes In Puerto Princesa (Palawan, Philippines) it is possible to go firefly watching while having your diner on a dug-out canoe at a mangrove river. We were interested in finding any mangrove snakes (Boiga dendrophila) at this river, but as I wrote in my first blog, it is not usual to search for reptiles as a tourist. After some phone calls we could rent a private boat and we were allowed to go on the river with a guide by daylight. The river is about 7 kilometers long, but you are only permitted to go up for 1 kilometer because of strong river currents.

We went to the river in the morning and it was already a warm sunny day. The river has beautiful surroundings and on the river it is quiet and peaceful. The first wildlife we saw were mudskippers and river crabs. It was very remarkable how rarely we saw birds, other than sparrows and swallows, this counts for all of the Philippines.

For a while we thought this would be all we would see on this trip, but then we spotted a water monitor warming up on a branch. Before we could approach him close enough for a good view, he already moved behind the branch, but I managed to get a shot.

Short after this meeting we found what we were looking for! Our first mangrove snake in it's natural habitat! Althought the snake was rolled up and too high in the tree, we were very happy with this finding.

It was possible to go on shore and look in between the mangroves. The night before it rained and we did not wear proper footwear, so unfortunately we had to skip this. Not to be sad for too long, because we found a second mangrove snake! This one was a bit lower in the tree and moving. It was not far from the place where we started our boattrip, and after this we went back to the city, being very satisfied!

Gomantong Cave Gomantong Cave, one of the biggest cave systems in Sabah, is well-known for collecting the valuable birds' nest of swiftlets, but is also home to many other wildlife. Outside the cave we saw some lizards quickly moving to a hiding spot, would we find some snakes too?

If you want to enter the cave, you have to take the smell of bat guano and ammonia for granted and deal with massive populations of cockroaches and other creepy crawlers.

Although the cave has a circular boardwalk to keep you off the guano-covered ground crawling with bugs and cockroaches, you better look out and don't slip or hold on to the handrail without checking it first! In the middle of the cave there was a big “mountain” that was actually moving, because of millions of insects which live of the guano on the floor.

The cave is small, but very fascinating. It is magical how sun rays lighten up the cave and you can hear and see millions of swiftlets high up in the cave. The nests of the swifltets are harvested for bird's nest soup and can be sold for very high prices. Swiftlets nests are protected and harvest is regulated by a Wildlife Department. Twice a year licensed locals climb to the roof of the cave using only ropes and poles to collect the nests. It’s very impressive to see how the nests are harvested.

We were only a few minutes inside the cave, as we literally run into a snake, that was moving from the handrail into one of the climbing ropes. I did not have an external flashlight for my camera, so I was happy we were still at the entrance of the cave with more daylight.

Cave racer snake (Orthriophis taeniurus also known as Elaphe taeniura), moving into the climbing ropes at the Gomantong cave, Borneo

The snake was a cave racer snake (Orthriophis taeniurus also known as Elaphe taeniura), a large and slender ratsnake. As the name implies, this snake often lives deep within caves where its diet consists mainly of bats.

We saw many insects like whip spiders, centipedes, cockroaches in all kind of shapes and sizes, sometimes a small lizards, but it was too dark to see the species, and we found a second cave racer snake. This snake was resting on a flat space in the wall of the cave.

This cave is definitely well worth a visit! Just don’t wear your white pants and don’t go on your flipflops.