Here Be Dragons

A visit to an island where we are the prey

Thursday’s excursion took us to Komodo National Park in Indonesia, home to thousands of Komodo dragons. We saw about a dozen of them. Most were keeping cool in the shade while we were fortunately perched above them on a boardwalk.

These are the largest lizards in the world. They have tails equal in length to their bodies, and, unlike Bob, they come equipped with 60 constantly replaced teeth. The teeth are serrated and even feature an iron-enriched coating to keep them incredibly sharp. They bite you, inject you with bacteria and an anticoagulant venom, and then just follow you around for a week until you drop dead. And then it’s feeding time.

Resting in the shade of the boardwalk, right below our feet.

Check out those claws.

A cool statue at the dock and a nice parting shot of the islands.