After dinner (around 8pm), we again piled into the canoe. It was fascinating being in the middle of the wilderness with the nearest city over 30 miles away. It wasn«t nearly as dark as I thought it would have been - the moon was only half full, and there was a considerable amount of cloud cover, though it didn«t actually rain during this excursion. We quickly left the lights (mostly tiki torches though the reception and dining areas were lit with dim florescent lighting) of the Acajatube Jungle lodge behind and went off in search of the caiman, a small aligator like reptile. They are extremely hard to find during the day, but at night, when they hover at the surface of the water, you can spot them fairly easily with a high powered flash light that reflects off their eyes - eyes that glow an eerie reddish/orange. Now it was pretty easy to spot them, but quite another to actually catch one. We located 4-5 before our guide actually caught one. Once we spotted one, we would cut the engine on the canoe and quietly paddle up to it. But just like most reptiles, they are fairly skitish and very fast. When we finally caught one, we were slowly, slowly making our approach. Nobody was making a sound....then, suddenly, the canoe driver launched himself into the river with a head first dive off of the bow of the boat and disappeared under the surface of the water!!!....!!!!....none of the tourists in the boat were expecting such a move and we all gasped in surprise (I«m currently grinning uncontrollably and my heart is picking up its beat in remembered excitement and thrill :-). After what seemed like 5 minutes but was probably less than 30 seconds, the driver resurfaced, waded over to the boat, and triumphantly presented us with a caiman. The reptile was about 3 feet long and was male. Krishna estimated it«s age at about 1-1.5 years old. I believe they can live about 60 years and obtain a length of about 3 meters. Stepan was brave and foolish enough to hold it for a bit (Krishna was constantly warning him not to let it go). Krishna also expained the difference between caimans and crocodiles (thier nearest reptile relative). The belly of a caiman is white while the belly of a croc is yellow. The caiman has 5 toes on the front feet and 4 on the rear while the croc is reversed. And the caiman opens it mouth from the bottom while the cros opens it from the top. Other fascinating things with got to see were the 2 different lenses the caiman possesses (one for in the water, one for out). Krishna would touch the caimans eye and one lid would come up horizonatally from the bottom and one would come out vertically from the side. He also got the caiman to open it mouth and we were able to see the muscle in the back of the throat the covers the caiman«s air passage and prevents him from drowning while under water. The caiman would drown if he opened his mouth wide enough to expose this air passage. Eventually, we returned the caiman to the waters and watched it scurry off indignantly.....then it was back to the lodge and to bed. Exhausted and happy and very pleased with our decision to come to the jungle.
Posted by jfer at February 22, 2002 3:05 PM