Post #330095 by The Gnomon on Tue, Sep 4, 2007 9:55 AM

I've lost more Frisbees in the jungle than most people have ever owned. It's immediate heartbreak. You see the thing headed in the direction of the water and you get the sense it might be uncatchable and go in. Everyone takes off for it in hopes that it will hang in a tree before it drops, but then you get there just in time to watch it sink beneth the surface of the muddy river. Way upstream there's some hope; where the rapids are and the waters are clear. But when you get down into the real jungle river, it's all muddy. No way anyone is stupid enough to jump in after a Frisbee in waters that aren't recognized by the locals as safe to swim. If they do not go into the water, gringos don't go into the water. Losing a Frisbee is traumatic. Transporting it all that distance from the US, great memories of fantastic throws, then it's gone in a flash.

Anyway, at one village where we lost a Frisbee we stayed for a couple of days and the first day went out exploring. A couple of places along a river road that extended along what I guess you'd call pasture, we'd find these big holes in the ground that ran underneath the pasture. Obviously, they were entrances to some burrowing animals home. We were curious as to what animal lived there so, in keeping with our habit of disturbing the wildlife for the sake of enlightenment, we pushed long sticks down into the holes to see what would come out, if anything. We all carried peinillas (Spanish for comb. It's what the bandoleros used to call their machetes...for when they parted the hair of their enemies). We hoped to never need to use them for defense, but we had them if that ever happened. Nothing ever popped out of the holes. We then continued out past the pastures into some of the forest.

Later when we returned to the village, everyone was celebrating. There lying dead, stretched out in the main street was a 40-50 foot anaconda, the one that lived in the holes we were probing. Ooops! Lucky us! Kinda of took the edge off the bummer of losing a Frisbee. As it turns out, that serpent had been wreaking havoc making off with village cattle from time to time. It is a big deal getting cattle into those remote farms in the first place. They have to be brought in by dugout canoe, so you can imagine how determined the villagers were to catch the thing. Its head was over a foot long and it was about a foot in diameter at its largest spot. We were quite relieved. Especially, since we'd scoped out a campsite not far from one of those big holes.

OK, other than the fact that some of the people we met didn't like foreigners and would just as soon whack you and toss you in the river where you'd never be seen again, that's as close to any near death experience I had in the jungle, at least that I know about. The jungle has a thousand eyes.

[ Edited by: The Gnomon 2007-09-04 12:50 ]