‘Water leak’ was actually pee from a python hiding in ceiling at cabin in South Africa
A couple visiting a national park in South Africa made a memorable discovery after they suspected their cabin had a “water leak.”
Mica Bafatakis and her boyfriend visited Kruger National Park and decided to stay the night at one of the park’s cabins in the Satara Rest Camp, Bafatakis posted on Facebook on March 16.
The park is home to numerous large animals such as lions, giraffes, wildebeest and hyenas as well as smaller animals such as owls, badgers, bats and many others, according to the park’s website.
The couple spent the night at the cabin. The following afternoon, “when water fell from the ceiling on my boyfriend’s leg, we reported a water leak to the reception,” Bafatakis said on Facebook.
“When we came back I wanted to double check the roof as I had a suspicion of a snake,” she wrote. “When I looked up it was a python in our roof.”
The python was slowly slithering around the rafters of the ceiling, a video shared by Bafatakis to a South Africa National Park Facebook group shows.
After finding the unwelcome visitor above them, the couple realized the “water” they felt earlier was actually pee from the snake, Bafatakis said on Facebook, noting the pee “stank.”
“Management immediately called in rangers to attend to the snake,” Isaac Phaahla, spokesperson for Kruger National Park, told the South African outlet TimesLive.
The rangers spent about two hours trying to get the python to come down, Bafatakis said. Their efforts were unsuccessful. The python slithered back up into the ceiling where it wasn’t visible.
“The couple were offered another unit which they accepted and checked out the next morning,” Phaahla told TimesLive. The park “is a unique wilderness area and these incidents do happen, but all efforts are made to ensure visitor safety,” he said.
Following the incident, officials are “pruning trees closer to the visitors’ units and closing holes which have been opened by squirrels with wire mesh,” he told TimesLive.
Kruger National Park is about 255 miles northeast of Johannesburg, near the border of South Africa and Mozambique.
This story was originally published March 27, 2023 at 12:00 PM with the headline "‘Water leak’ was actually pee from a python hiding in ceiling at cabin in South Africa."
