This is one of the most spine-chilling encounters I have ever had. I had gone for a trip to Nigeria in Africa and decided to stay towards the jungles quite at a distance from the city in the hopes of seeing some animals in nature. But what I saw was nothing more than terror. I had hired an armed guide called Ndlovu who would be with me for the entire stay and knew the ways of the jungle, and if it was not for him I would not be writing this. My first few days were a pleasure as I sighted many animals and I gone for a safari too.

On the second last day of my stay I decided to visit the jungle near my hotel with Ndlovu who knew the jungle well. I saw a couple of wild buffalo and was returning when Ndlovu suddenly stopped walking and froze in his tracks. He pointed at a python slithering towards us. My heart jumped into my mouth and it seemed that my heartbeat had gone up to 200 times per minute. On the other hand I was stunned by the beauty of the shining scales as it shone in the bright sun. I didn’t know what to do. Ndlovu said it was no use running as pythons are faster than man.

To add to that, the python looked real hungry and all we had was a fruit cutting knife though it was quite sharp. Ndlovu told that since he was the guide, he would take care of me. I felt a bit secure but I didn’t now what a guide with a fruit cutting knife could do. He told me to slowly walk away and he looked confident in what he told so I slowly began to walk and consequently the python slithered towards me. Ndlovu suddenly fell in-between me and the python. I began to walk again and the python moved its attention towards Ndlovu. I went and hid behind a couple of trees.

As I watched in horror, it went and curled up around him. It went and started squeezing him as if it had waited for him for days. (Please don’t get the misconception that pythons squeeze people. They crush you till you stop breathing and swallow you whole so they don’t eat.) As he was a sturdy man, it was finally tired of pressing and stared to swallow.

I was terrified. Ndlovu didn’t move an inch and it seemed that he had fainted. It started moving slowly upwards. First it covered his feet, then his ankles and was moving up towards his knees. When it was just going to move higher towards his stomach, in a flash there was some movement. Ndlovu had taken out the knife from his breast pocket and had slashed the python’s head into two. I was stunned as I never saw such quick movement in my life. He slowly got up and brought me back from my dazed state. I didn’t know how to thank him. He said that this was an incident that had happened quite often to him.

After that we went back to the hotel as soon as possible and all I could do just sit down and think what all could have happened if Ndlovu was not there. After that he did show off a bit but I didn’t mind that. The day I was returning I thanked Ndlovu a lot again and he just told me that he did his duty. I always remember the python whenever I hear of the word.