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- Mar 25, 2015
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Sooo, there was this expo in Germany and I was going to make a post about it. Before it disappears in the catacombs of history here it is:
Hamm is a small town in the more northern middle of Germany. Its only claim to fame that I’m aware of is hosting the “Terraristika” every 3 month. “Terraristika” means you can get every kind of animal that can reasonably be kept in a terrarium – reptiles, amphibs, and invertebrates of all kinds. It’s definitely the biggest of its kind in Germany and with more than 500 vendors and several thousand visitors it may be the biggest in Europe. Unfortunately, Hamm is a small city.
The first thing you notice while driving toward the Terraristika is the traffic jam
. And I was rather late (around noon), so I didn’t even experience the worst of it. The expo opens at 10am and the morning is a real traffic mess. Hamm is just not designed for thousands of extra cars. Then there is the parking problem. At best there is space for around 2000 cars close to the expo… so I parked quite a bit away in a residential area and started walking. No problem on my way to the expo when I wasn’t carrying much, but on the way back… we’ll get to that.
The first thing you notice when you get into the hall is the crush. You better not be agoraphobic. Shoving, pushing, squeezing… I’m small, so the bad thing is I often couldn’t even see what the vendors were offering, but the good thing was I could somehow squeeze through where bigger people got stuck. And the heat. To make things comfortable for the exotic animals the hall is heated to a comfy 25°C (78 F) – in theory. Add to that thousands of people and lights and things cease to be comfy at all and become just hot.
Ok, I had made it into the hall. First step: Meet a guy I had contacted online and get a Cyriopagopus schioedtei and a Cyriopagopus hatihati, both juvenile females from 2015. Then – deep breath – shove, squeeze , and push through the crowd to the table of my friend Henning. He actually was right in the midst of it all – and in the hottest spot to boot. Dripping with sweat we exchanged spiders – my T. cyaneolum babies for him, 3 Tapi sanctivincenti slings and a L. Borneo black juvi female for me. He kindly let me deposit my spider box with him so I could look around unencumbered.
There are fads in the invert hobby – this year land crabs are en vogue in Europe. There were plenty. Also true spiders: they seem to be the new “thing”. When it comes to tarantulas it’s Monocentropus communals. There were several egg sacs in 2015 and by now you get M. balfouri everywhere and cheap. I saw a communal with 6 juveniles for 140 Euro. I made my way through the aisles and saw that someone was selling sexed juvenile A. avics… I hadn’t wanted one before, but they were sooo cute. Hey, I go in for cute, so sue me. Finally I had squeezed my way towards an acquaintance of mine – I knew she had a juvenile female A. huriana for sale. Very fluffy with just a hint of green. That one became mine, too. I heroically passed up an E. olivacea (so pretty, what a great color!) and an H. himalayana, though . At the last minute I grabbed a L. nigerimum juvenile female from a Polish vendor.
Phew. Now just to get my spider box at my friends table and then GET OUT. After two hours I was exhausted. Getting back to the car with a box full of spiders, a bag full of cork bark, and another bag with Panchlora roaches and beetle jelly wasn’t so much fun either. And then driving 400 km / 250 miles back home with that epic stop to pick up my new Tapi gigas. Every time I tell myself: That’s it. I don’t need that again. And when the next expo comes around I’m like: maybe just one more time…
Hamm is a small town in the more northern middle of Germany. Its only claim to fame that I’m aware of is hosting the “Terraristika” every 3 month. “Terraristika” means you can get every kind of animal that can reasonably be kept in a terrarium – reptiles, amphibs, and invertebrates of all kinds. It’s definitely the biggest of its kind in Germany and with more than 500 vendors and several thousand visitors it may be the biggest in Europe. Unfortunately, Hamm is a small city.
The first thing you notice while driving toward the Terraristika is the traffic jam
. And I was rather late (around noon), so I didn’t even experience the worst of it. The expo opens at 10am and the morning is a real traffic mess. Hamm is just not designed for thousands of extra cars. Then there is the parking problem. At best there is space for around 2000 cars close to the expo… so I parked quite a bit away in a residential area and started walking. No problem on my way to the expo when I wasn’t carrying much, but on the way back… we’ll get to that.The first thing you notice when you get into the hall is the crush. You better not be agoraphobic. Shoving, pushing, squeezing… I’m small, so the bad thing is I often couldn’t even see what the vendors were offering, but the good thing was I could somehow squeeze through where bigger people got stuck. And the heat. To make things comfortable for the exotic animals the hall is heated to a comfy 25°C (78 F) – in theory. Add to that thousands of people and lights and things cease to be comfy at all and become just hot
.Ok, I had made it into the hall. First step: Meet a guy I had contacted online and get a Cyriopagopus schioedtei and a Cyriopagopus hatihati, both juvenile females from 2015. Then – deep breath – shove, squeeze , and push through the crowd to the table of my friend Henning. He actually was right in the midst of it all – and in the hottest spot to boot
. Dripping with sweat we exchanged spiders – my T. cyaneolum babies for him, 3 Tapi sanctivincenti slings and a L. Borneo black juvi female for me. He kindly let me deposit my spider box with him so I could look around unencumbered.There are fads in the invert hobby – this year land crabs are en vogue in Europe. There were plenty. Also true spiders: they seem to be the new “thing”. When it comes to tarantulas it’s Monocentropus communals. There were several egg sacs in 2015 and by now you get M. balfouri everywhere and cheap. I saw a communal with 6 juveniles for 140 Euro. I made my way through the aisles and saw that someone was selling sexed juvenile A. avics… I hadn’t wanted one before, but they were sooo cute
. Hey, I go in for cute, so sue me. Finally I had squeezed my way towards an acquaintance of mine – I knew she had a juvenile female A. huriana for sale. Very fluffy with just a hint of green. That one became mine, too. I heroically passed up an E. olivacea (so pretty, what a great color!) and an H. himalayana, though . At the last minute I grabbed a L. nigerimum juvenile female from a Polish vendor.Phew. Now just to get my spider box at my friends table and then GET OUT. After two hours I was exhausted
. Getting back to the car with a box full of spiders, a bag full of cork bark, and another bag with Panchlora roaches and beetle jelly wasn’t so much fun either. And then driving 400 km / 250 miles back home with that epic stop to pick up my new Tapi gigas. Every time I tell myself: That’s it. I don’t need that again. And when the next expo comes around I’m like: maybe just one more time…
