While in Botswana this past August/September I encountered one. The PH warned me to keep the windows, etc., closed because the mambas were out due to unseasonably warm weather.
This first day in the field we pulled under one of the few relatively tall trees to park the bakkie in the shade during lunch. After gourging ourselfs, we slept on the benches on the bakkie.
After an hour of snoozing I got up to take a leak behind a nearby bush. Suddenly there was a loud cry, followed by raucus laughter from the trackers. Seemed that a mamba had been on a branch not more than three feet above our heads as we slept. The PH freaked, grabbed his rifle, and shot the sucker in half.
In the ensuing days the tracker jumped to the side of brush piles a couple times, as he could see mamba tracks entering, but not exiting, the nearby pile.
Only about 3' long, but enough to make a guy pretty sick, if not dead. These guys face leopards, rhinos, etc., but nothing scares them like a mamba.
Last edited by Borealis Bob; 01/06/10.
"The whole problem with the world is that fools & fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubt" Bertrand Russell
