Cliché: French: n. an expression which has been used so often that it is felt to be trite and tedious
I always thought “leech-infested jungle” was a cliché, just another over-the-top bit of hyperbole used to evoke a hot, humid, tangled, wet and forbiddingly inhospitable place. Like a terrestrial version of the aquatic leech scene in “The African Queen.” Here’s my news flash: it’s not a cliché.
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| JP in Leech Socks |
We’ve been birding all over the world. We have leech socks we got for a trip to Vietnam and I have even worn them on occasion, but I have never been any place that I would say was “leech infested.” Leech socks, by the way, are shaped like Christmas stockings and are made of heavy cloth or nylon that is impermeable to leeches. They are worn over the socks, in the boots, and come up over the pant legs to just below the knee where they are snugly tied off.
On a birding trip to Sri Lanka in late January 2009, our guide suggested I put on my leech socks before entering the rainforest of Kitulgala where Bridge on the River Kwai was filmed. We tramped through fields, walked narrow paths in the forest and bushwhacked in the rough brush. No leeches to be seen.
We next traveled to Sinharaja, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a lush, lovely, and diverse forest that has been protected by the Sinhalese as a forest reserve. I wore my leech socks. No leeches. We began to relax—perhaps all the anxiety about leeches was unwarranted. Our guide pointed out that it was, after all, the dry season—which we had chosen because it is the easiest season to see birds. The dry season also meant fewer active leeches; they need rain to thrive.
Then it rained, an afternoon deluge that drizzled off in the evening. We enjoyed the down pour from the covered open-air dining area of Martin’s Forest Lodge.
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| JP Studying a Bird Guide |
The following morning, we hiked off into the park at dawn on a broad and well maintained trail. We strolled along (birders aren’t power hikers) in the early morning light, pausing now and then whenever we spotted interesting birds. Then I made the mistake of glancing down and refocusing on the ground. OMG! Waving, weaving, undulating and moving my way—Leeches—skinny threads headed for my warm body and a fresh meal of blood. One of them disappeared into the eyelet of my boot, but no problem—it would be trapped between boot and leech sock– doomed to wander bloodless. Hah!
Soon Uditha, our guide, heard a bird that had long eluded us. It is a shy, fast, and elusive chicken called a Ceylon Spurfowl, and it is an endemic (found nowhere else). In hot pursuit we plunged off the trail, leaving our packs near a tidy forest restroom, and scrabbled up a ridge through the thick, damp leaf litter. No luck on the bird—gone again, so I went slipping and sliding back down to my pack. Taking advantage of a clean squat toilet, I pulled my pants down, peed, pulled my pants up and headed out. Back on the path, I vigorously flicked numerous leeches off of my boots, leech socks, and pants.
One artful dodger, however had escaped my notice and taken advantage of my vulnerable moment in the toilet. Equipped with suckers at both ends, it had climbed up my pant leg, inchworm fashion, and waited until I dropped my pants. Yes indeed. That opportunistic leech fell (it probably jumped) into my pants. It finally chose the side of my left buttock as a good place to bite, and eat.
Now the leech is a subtle surgeon, injecting an anesthetic and an anti-coagulant. I hardly felt a thing–only a little prickle. That prickle and the bloody, wet patch on my pants finally alerted me. Craning around and plucking at my seat, I yelled for my husband “JP I need help!” I dropped my pants (in the middle of the leech infested forest) (the guide tactfully gazed off in the opposite direction) and sure enough–an almost fully sated leech. Yikes! JP squirted some alcohol hand-sanitizer on the leech, flicked it away, smeared some more on the punctures, slapped a Band-Aid on it and that was that.
All seemed well; the Band-Aid came off in the shower and the wound seemed on its way to healing.
After several days, we left that leech-infested jungle and were heading down hill over a rough, rutted, pot-holed track, sitting in the back of an old Toyota Land Cruiser. Birders never stop birding and there was one to be seen amongst the crops of a woman who lived by the side of the track. The chase was on. I stayed behind, once again aware of a wet spot on the seat of my pants. Sure enough, that leech bite hadn’t healed, in fact it did what leech bites do, which is bleed long after the bite; that anti-coagulant was still at work.
The rough ride had irritated the bite. So once again, “ Hey JP– can you look at my leech bite.” Our bird guide heard and said, “This woman can help you!” He spoke to her in Sinhala and pointed at my seat. She smiled at me and promptly trotted up the path to the road and disappeared. Ah, I thought, “an herbal remedy, a secret decoction from forest plants, an unguent made of bark.” She returned a few moments later, slapping a small metallic packet back and forth. She ripped it open; I eased my pants down, craning around to see what she was applying. She dipped her finger into a packet of…Instant Coffee! She pressed it into the bite, she rubbed it vigorously across the wound, and with the area now dark brown, she accepted a fresh Band-Aid, carefully put it on the leech bite, stepped back and smiled again, showing lovely white teeth. Problem solved. And indeed it was.
Some post trip research seems to confirm that caffeine has known styptic properties.
For further reading about leeches: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leech
