The Fear of Dog

Pharmaceutical companies must love American tourists visiting Africa. It’s easy to understand why the mosquitoes do. Take my recent diet, for example. I’ve been flavoring my red blood cells with broccoli and garlic and herbs. Following in my wake, a mosquito might think it's come upon the grand opening of the latest Chinese restaurant to open in town. Tonight's special: Oregon beef with broccoli.

Malarone seems to be the preferred weapon of mass destruction employed to fend off the malaria bombs dropped by the buzzing brigades of the anopheles mosquito with their built-in siphons. Joe and Beth and I have had various forms of sticker shock already, and now my friendly Costco pharmacist tells me the price for the Malarone prescription alone is $186.00. Holy cow. It’s not enough that the mosquitoes want to suck the blood out of us, but GlaxoSmithKline does, too! I know, I know, a small price to pay considering the alternative, but still. The clear-cutting of everything green in my bank account continues.

The photo above is a sampling of the material that works its way into and out of the revolving stack of light reading next to my bed. I read a lot at night. Sometimes the reading is fun, sometimes work, sometimes a manual on my latest gadget (like the altimeter/stopwatch/alarm clock/temperature gauge/barometer/rocket launcher/espresso maker that attaches to my harness strap). Mostly, though, in fact almost always now, I read about Kilimanjaro. I pull one of the dog-eared books or lists or pamphlets or newspaper articles off of my nightstand and retrace the steps I’ve taken through the pages over the last year, searching for that one paragraph or sentence that will make the difference on the trip if I don’t review it again.

Two nights ago I came across an entire description of our Western Breach Route that I had not seen before. How could I have missed that? Within the pages of Kilimanjaro - The trekking guide to Africa’s highest Mountain are comments like this describing our route:

“…you’re sharing the forest with colobus and blue monkeys and the rarely encountered buffalo, elephant, lion, leopard and porcupine. “

“…it wasn’t uncommon a few years back for trekkers to be accompanied by armed rangers to ward off buffalo attacks.”

“If you’re spending some time with animals or in the wilderness, it’s also worth considering having a course of rabies injections, though it isn’t pleasant, consisting of three injections spread over one month.”

Okay, hold it! (Insert sound of needle scratching across LP record here.) What exactly do they mean by “spending some time with animals”? I did not sign up for being taken out by a buffalo with PMS or a porcupine having a bad hair day. Furthermore, I don’t have a month left to start a course of rabies injections, and I can only imagine what GlaxoSmithKline or another of its ilk might think is a fair price to protect me in the event I sign up for the Ride-A-Wild-Buffalo excursion. This little eight-second ride a few years ago was plenty, thank you.

Conclusion: I need to stop reading. From rodents to elephants, every rustle heard in the bushes on the mountain will now quite literally put the fear of DOG in me! Good thing I had a dog. I am fluent when it comes to the animal kingdom: "Sit. Stay."