Second day in the Amazon--wild animal roundup

The cocktail hour was more fun and even cozier than usual, being as we had bonded with 3/4 of the guests at the Lodge. I made a few trips back and forth to the monkey cabin to make us "free" drinks. We had run out of ice in the two tiny trays, but I began using the water Jean had poured into the pan. Big sheets of ice in tiny hotel-style glasses with limes filched from Mirante de São Francisco. Works for me.

The night before, we had briefly met Marino, one of the guides, who was a transplant from Italy. He told us he had always wanted to be a jungle guide, and told his wife and children so, moving to the Amazon to work at Anavilhanas. He never said if he was divorced or not, or if his family was tolerant of his choice of occupation. Whatever the case, Marino was a charmer, with a voice kind of like an Italian Peter Lawford, and a sense of humor that spanned the international dateline.

He was to be our guide that evening, with another of the dark Amazonian assistants we had seen but never experienced. Marino flat-out told us that he loves to catch stuff at night, and hoped we'd have good luck. I did too, I guess. I wasn't sure about him bringing some snake into a dark boat the way Yavor had described it to us that day at lunch. I don't know what Robo was thinking, but I have a hunch.

Our party consisted of us, the four Valechas, Marino and his assistant in that small green boat I photographed our first morning in the Amazon. We set off in the dark, with the motor running on low. Marino began to tell us some things about the Amazon, our evening's search, and other interesting stuff. It took on the feel of a campfire at night, with the stories and uncertainty, only there was no fire--just a spotlight that Marino used sparingly.

We were looking for anything with eyes that shined in the dark when hit with the spotlight. Marino swept the light over the trees quickly, which was very eerie. "Look for the glowing eyes," he said. We succumbed to a couple of false alarms and one cayman spotted diving in the water. But finally, we hit it big. Marino had the boatman come in silently and stealthily, spotlighting the cayman the whole time. The Valechas were in the front of the boat with Marino, so we couldn't see it all very well, but it seems that we pulled up to the bank, Marino pulled out a loop and snared the cayman, and the boatman ran up front on his command, releasing the beast from the loop and holding it firmly in his huge brown hands.

Marino looks like an insane man. Insane with joy at the size of the cayman we had snagged. The Valecha girls were first to pet and see it, while Laxman held the light, which burned out the shots in strange ways. Look at his daughter's face: demented with glee like Marino's. Something about that cayman. Possibly she's thinking of what a clever accessory the handbag would be. Her father was in the fabric business, I believe.

The boatman held the cayman with gentle insistence, and as Marino told us, the cayman knew it wasn't in any immediate danger, so it decided to relax. I'll bet the boatman had good cayman ju-ju. I never did hear his name, but I'll call him Colonel Cayman.

Look at the beautiful cayman head. Notice Col. Cayman's gentle grip.

You're gonna laugh, but I swear, the cayman reminds me of Spike when I'm holding him and Jean is clipping his doo-doo butt. Zoey would never lower herself to be in a boat without air conditioning.

I was never the least bit concerned about the cayman's escaping, though I believe Marino told us that it had happened before. And then I flashed on Cassio's finger wound "from a cayman" and decided I wouldn't lower my guard quite so fast.

After all of us had stroked the cayman's leathery belly, Col. Cayman let him back into the water, much to his splashy delight. We backed up and headed back out looking for a snake or bird or something. After a little spotlighting, Marino had the Colonel pull the boat over to see a pair of birds. I swear he called them Honeymoon birds.

We sailed close in to look, and they placidly sat there and let us do it. If I were them, I'd be on the lookout for some kind of tree snake.

The bird on the left is going, "Shit! The light! Give it a rest!" The one on the right is going, "You ain't a snake are ya?"

No, but Marino was determined to find one. Which we did in short order. A pink tree boa, but that's not what it was called. It just happened to be pink, and when the spotlight shined on it, its spine was visible through the translucency of its body.

On Marino and the snake (I don't even like to see that word in print!), do you recall that after he had spotted it from a distance, we pulled in to the overhanging vegetation as far as I cared to go, and all he could spot was a moth. He thought he had been decoyed by it, but then all of sudden we pulled in even further (ahhhh!) and he leaped forward into the limbs. He thrashed around a good bit and then emerged with... that... serpent.

You mean like this, Robocop?

Marino was in an almost manic state of excitement about the huge success we were having that night. He told us that caymans are fun, but catching snakes is his favorite thing. Good for him!

We all got to pet the snake, the Valecha girls going first, then Mrs. Valecha. This next shot was so totally primal I could hardly stand it--Mom feeling the snake as it shared a beady stare with her daughter. But let me go on record as saying I have NO INTEREST in mixing snakes with sex IN or OUT of dreams. PERIOD.

I touched the snake briefly, enough to satisfy myself that it wasn't audioanimatronic. Snort! Then it was Jean's turn. She kept petting it and petting it until I thought Marino was gonna let her REALLY pet it. I knew he was a cutup, but didn't know how MUCH of a cutup.

Finally Marino put the snake back on the branch where he had found him, I heard a big sigh from Robo in the very back of the boat, and we pulled out to head home. After our huge success in the roundup and release, part of our trip home was spent slowly with no lights while Marino pointed out constellations we may never see again. Against the inky black sky, it was something not to be believed. Robo knew what some of the groups were, but Jean and I just thought they were pretty stars. I tried to find the Big and Little Dipper. I don't know if they were even there or not. Pretty.

On the boat ride: With absolutely no light pollution -- which is hard to avoid anywhere near the populated areas of the U.S. -- the night sky coming back was absolutely splendid. The point I was making about it was that we had NEVER seen ANY of the stars in most of the southern half of the sky. We were looking at a different part of the universe than we can see from Birmingham. There is some overlap in the northern part of the sky where we were, but the Little Dipper, as one example, could never be seen from there because of its northiness (that's a relatively new astronomical term).

We were still slightly exhilarated when we got off the boat, but by the time we got to the top of the stairs and finally to the monkey room, I was whupped. As was Jean. We didn't have any sunrise activities, but one that started at 7 am: the jungle hike for me and the visit to another village for Jean, who had opted out of the jungle deal. I was slightly apprehensive about the effect on my arthritic knees, but couldn't pass it up.