Running for your Life!

Last week I had an interesting experience, or rather, encounter.  Looking back, I wish it could have been filmed.  As I tell the story, you may well remember a similar scene from the movie Tommy Boy.

I made a trip to gather GPS data at my in-laws farm.  I found myself and my mother-in-law hiking through the brush, a thick tangled mess of grass, fallen branches, saplings, and other trees, when our guide decided that it would be best for us to wait while he went ahead to look for the boundary marker.  This man, Haroldo, has lived on this land for almost 30 years, knows it well, and knows how to operate a machette in the forest.  We didn't.

After some time, we heard Haroldo coming back for us, so we got up and tried to see if we could meet him on the way.  Nope, I couldn't even find the first trail made, that's how thick the underbrush was.  As Haroldo arrived within a few feet of me, hacking away with the machette the whole time, I felt a couple sharp pains on my face, one on the cheek and another right between the eye brows.  As I tried to figure out what was happening, I suddenly heard the buzzing and felt another pain, on my ear this time.

Now it dawns on me, bees!  I didn't know if I was supposed to run, freeze, or stop, drop 'n role!  So as I start dancing around and swatting at my attackers, I hear Haroldo yell to me, RUN!  All this time I'm wondering if I have an allergy to bee stings, could these possibly dangerous, or just pesky, any then how in the world I could run in this mess of a forrest!

Keep in mind that one can barely walk in this place!  And we were on the side of a 45 degree slope as well.  So in place of running, I think we did more falling and rolling and screaming!  In the process of the swatting and falling I managed to lose my glasses, and our water bottle, and pick up a few more stings, five in total. Between my mother-in-law and Haroldo, we picked up about 15 stings total.  It was then the Haroldo enlightened us by saying how "lucky" we were to only get that many!  Apparently, Africanized Bees are common in the tropics.

Now I laugh, but believe me, there was no laughing going during all this!

Got to saddle up for the first time in a long time!