Idiots Abroad: Motos, Ants and Geckos- Athens

June 11, 2012

After an uneventful night in the ER Gary has me drive home from the hospital on the Moto. Not a good decision on his part. It takes a couple of tries for me to get going but I start off by going off-roading but Gary helps guide me back on track. From there I master the deep sandy roads and around giant puddles until the end I approach one final puddle. As I approach it I look at both sides trying to decide which path would be the easiest to get around the puddle. I decide to go right and just as I start to veer in that direction I hear a voice from behind me saying “We should go the other way.” The calm rational thing to do would be to slow down and turn in the other direction. But with me everything is more complicated and difficult. I freak out like the girl that I am and lock up. Which in turn sends me off roading and into some ones field. What makes it worse is that the people that own the field were in it plowing at the time so they all stop what they were doing and stare at the crazy white person that doesn’t know how to drive. While other by standards on the road just laugh at me. Fortunately Gary has long enough arms that he can reach around me and grab to handle bars and lead me back to the road before any serious damage is done. Besides my pride that is. Almost home and only one more obstacle to concur. I need to turn between two metal poles that are wide enough apart for a car to fit through so getting a moto bike through them should be a piece of cake. Right? Well for anyone not named Athens sure but for me not so much. I try making a wide turn thinking that would make it easier and that I would slow down and pass between the poles with ease and grace like a pro and maybe redeem some of my confidence back that I lost about a mile down the road. Nope! May pride and confident that I had in being able to drive a moto bike is non-existent as soon as I being to turn and I forget which way to turn the throttle and instead of slowing down to turn I speed up and head straight for the pole. Again Gary’s long arms save not only my life but his as well inches before we collide. I think this might be enough excitement for one day….not quite.

After a semi-peaceful sleep I wake up to the feeling of being pinched and something crawling along my hands and arms. I turn over and switch on my lamp and look around my bed and I’m surrounded by big red African ants. That BITE!!! Not a good way to wake up. I grab some shoes and Carlie and we stomp them to death. But the more we stomp and move beds and bags the more we find.

While we are moving bags around we find a gecko hiding. With my stealthy ninja skills I trap him under the broom and we call for Bronwyn to come and help us. As we reach for the gecko it tries to escape and make its way up Bronwyn’s’ pant leg. She gets it trapped around her knee and as she tries to walk outside to let it go it makes it way even farther up her trousers to her butt. When she finally make it outside she has to unzip her pants and reveal her bottom for the gecko to escape.

Just another day in Africa.