a herp experience

[HABU]

there i was hiking along the rio sirena river on the osa pennisulsa. it was a sunny, humid day as usual. the river, only 20 feet across or so, was really not much more than a creek that i'd been accustomed to back in kentucky. i had been in the virgin rainforest for about three weeks by now. i was thoroughly acclimated by now to the point that the onslaught of buzzing insects no longer bothered me. i felt by then that i was no longer visiting this place, but rather a part of it.i was a member of this ecosystem. i sloshed through the water most of the time as it made traveling easier. what always struck me, among many things, that was different from home, was how very clear and pristine the water was. i could stand chest high in the river and still see my feet. it's not like this at home. and despite me kicking up the river bed with my feet, no clouds of sediment ever appeared. to me, this showed that the river was ancient, devoid of the typical sediments of my home rivers and creeks. no human has impacted this river before. no farming, no logging no habitation whatsoever. it is as it was since before man arrived on the scene. making my way through a valley, where the river ran swiftly. i was immersed in an ocean of green. many shades of green presented themselves but my mind was always unable to process it fully. it all was a blend of emerald and an occasional spark of brown from a tree limb. standing waist high in this now stream, colorful tropical fish nibbled at my legs. ouch! the more aggresive ones would tug at the hairs of my legs. i approached a sink hole in a bend of the river that compromised it's deepness by the deep green color of it's flow. just beyond it's bend, was a sandy bank awash in sunlight, which is precious here. i knew from experience that the divers would blast this place as i neared the deep bend in the river. the water was deep enough for them to not hurt themselves by launching into space. these were green iguanas. i had learnt not to let them suprised me with their kamakazee dives. sure enough, as i neared the green water, mighty bombs exploded around me. all you can ever see is the impact and hear the BOOOSH of their entry. they were just iguanas diving into the water to escape from their predators. more of a reflex that a concious act, it was highly effective in saving them from whatever...





should i finish this true story or is it junk?

let me know

[HABU]

it's rough so forgive the lack of paragraphs and poor punctuation

[Rainwater]

it isnt junk!!! carry on!!! the way you kicked up the riverbed and no clouds of sediment ever came up...ahh what a gorgeous picture.

It's great habu!!

[Andy]

yeah crack on i wanna know what happened next!

[SuperTed]

i was just getting into that keep on going!!!

[Miranda]

Go on keep going!!!!!
Im enjoying it!

[HABU]

...crept up on them. however, i never could quite understand why they did this with me walking by far below them. they were perfectly safe high up in the trees. it was a fascinating behavior to experience despite the occasional annoyance of them catching me off guard from time to time. even to this day, far away from the tropics and the kingdom of the iguana, while slogging through local creeks, as i enjoy doing whenever possible,i still sometimes catch myself on guard for a diving iguana under the right circumstances. it's silly and sometimes i quietly chuckle to myself when i fall into this old habit. about a week prior to this day, purposely brought along my snorkle mask in order to attempt to locate one of these beasts hiding beneath the water. it didn't take long that day for me to have that opportunity. scanning the trees above the river bank in a spot where i had been dive bombed before, a particularly large splash ocurred and i was just able to make out the blur of the lizard as he entered the water. i dove in immediately and laid on the river bottom. it's a whole different world down there. a light greenish hue enveloped everything. sparkiling patterns of light danced across the peddle strewn river bottom from the water ripples on the surface above. knarled logs and branches clumped together in spots providing shelter for some of the inhabitants of this place. otherwise there were mostly open expanses of warm-green crystal water. clouds of tiny tropical fish swam about in unison, changing course on a dime. of perfect timing and grace were their movements, as if they were one organism. silvery sides glinted in the sunlight that streamed down.

[shiva&kaa123]

Are you an author? If not, maybe something you should consider!
Ben

[HABU]

i diverted my attention back to the task at hand. surveying the underwater horizon carefully, i trained my mind to lock on to what i expected to see. where is he? i said to myself. he has to be right here! did he walk away... underwater? i slowly clammered along the river bottom, using my hands much as a turtle would do. side to side, i carefully scanned. then suddenly, almost startling me, there he was, as if he had just magically appeared. one moment he wasn't there, then, bam! there he was!. he just lay there. his feet gripping the rocky bottom. he looked eerily ghost like. stoic. as if frozen in place from an ancient time. as if he had been sitting there for millions of years, waiting. motionless, waiting for something unknowable to wrest him from his slumber. to me he no longer looked like an iguana. his familiarity had left and what lay before me was something else entirely. my sensibilities told me he was an iguana but my mind processed his image as some primorial entity. shaking myself back to reality. i aggressively reached out and grabbed him about his shoulders and......

[HABU]

he didn't move. i stood up in the waist deep water clutching my prey. i grasped his thick, rough tail by it's base and repositioned my other hand beneath his chest in a classic manner. he remained lifeless as though he was still in that place far away. that place that no one can go to without sailing across oceans of time. i stared intently into his reptilian eye. his pupil, fixed, leaving me with the unnerving feeling that he possesed a wisdom far beyond this world or this time. he was quite large, maybe five foot from his snout to the end of his long whip-like tail. definately a bull iguana. he was powerfully built, even more so than the captive ones i have handled many times in the past. one could see that he's live a active, robust life here in the rainforest. the base of his tail was thick and powerful. his arms and legs swollen with muscle. his dewlap was as large and impressive as any i have seen.his color was a pinkish-tan and caused me to think how inapproprate the name GREEN iguana was for him......