Reptiles

by Nancy Goodmiller (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown Belize

She always liked reptiles. Lizards, snakes, caiman, anoles, skinks. She liked how a lizard would cock its head and look her in the eye. She liked when she encountered a lizard who took the time to stop darting here and there, to stop pumping its torso up and down on its shiny scaly legs, and become stationary, and look her in the eye. A few years back, she employed a taxi driver on an island off mainland Belize to stop by a meat market for a plastic bag of fresh chicken and they drove to a dirt lot next to a tree-ringed lagoon, its water dark, murky enough to conceal whatever was below the surface. This was the taxi driver’s idea, a response to her innocent query about wildlife on the island while he drove her and her daughter from the boat landing to their hotel. She then called the taxi driver, her idea, from the local public library after they’d checked into their hotel and were wandering about the dirt streets. The taxi driver picked them up in front of the library. They confidently climbed into his van and they all stopped by the local meat market for a bag of beef. Out of beef, they purchased a bag of fresh chicken pieces. The taxi van parked in the dirt lot, her daughter safely stowed inside, she assumed invincibility behind her camera lens as she approached the water’s edge with the driver. The immense length of a motionless aquatic form was barely visible above the dark water of the lagoon. They stopped their forward approach about thirty feet from the water’s edge and she watched as the taxi driver heaved chunks of the glistening pinkish-white flesh towards the inanimate body. The splashes, energy from compression of chicken and water, had gotten the animal’s attention. The long scaled body slowly rotated, as if on an axis, and faced the disturbances in the dark water. Shimmering chunks of flesh were thrown shorter and shorter distances into the water to entice the animal closer to the shore. She kept pace with the taxi driver as he walked towards the water’s edge, stood next to him as he stayed still, then backed up in pace with him as he withdrew. “Wait, Mum,” the driver cautioned. “Now go, Mum.” “Back up, Mum.” “Wait, Mum.” This dance of forwards and backwards, interrupted with stationary pauses, continued until the chicken pieces were finally thrown up onto the wet sandy shoreline and the beast raised his head and shoulders out of the water, pushing down with his stubby front legs and scaly front feet. The once becalmed beast appeared now ravenous, a ten foot crocodile, facing its prey, its providers, them. Its teeth fringed its cavernous mouth and its giant jaws opened, noisily clamped closed, opened, and closed again. Its snout was blunt, while its seeming infinite number of teeth, 60+, protruded sharply, menacingly. Chicken was apparently an acceptable item on the crocodile’s menu. “Back up, Mum.” Another photo. Another. Heart racing. And another. The chicken consumed, the reptile fortunately slid backwards, glided, and turned in the murky water until just the crest of its scaled gray-brown back and the hump of its head was visible. She since learned that the iris of the Belizean crocodile is silvery brown. She did not get that close and her zoom lens was inadequate. She also learned that due to its strong musculature, Belizean crocodiles are capable of very explosive movements and are extremely fast runners. “Ok, Mum. Into the van, Mum.” Only after being dropped back off at the comfortably safe hotel and speaking to the proprietor there, learning that the crocodile had recently taken people’s dogs, learning that it was considered just a matter of time before the reptile feasted on an unknowing tourist, an overeager, intrepid tourist standing behind a lens, did she realize that she had totally entrusted her safety to a Belizean taxi driver whose name she had already forgotten. But allure of the exotic, the love of adventure, had in fact been reinforced. Again. Had she learned, yet, to look from both sides of the lens?