We were out and under the light of the moon, a good distance from our lodge, in the thick of this jungle, the Amazon. This time there was no path to guide us somewhat, but Avelino assured me he didn't need one, it was his backyard he said, matter-of-fact, he said that too many times, it made me suspicious. Now we were in the dense jungle, a flashlight in his hands, and mine likewise, the moon over our heads we could hardly see, looking for—none other than the big spider, the Tarantulas. We were lucky in that we got our own guide, and the other group three or four couples, had one guide for them all. It was as I wanted it, if possible.
As we walked in the deep, we past many large trees, larger and thicker than the thickest pillars of any cathedral I had been in, and I've been in them from Istanbul to Rome, and throughout South America, and North America—; and all along our sides was entangled shrubbery, a wealth of green. Rosa and I walked shoulder to shoulder, and as far as I knew Avelino was walking was walking everywhichway. But some how we got him to slow down for me, and thus, I got to rest when needed. We had stopped earlier in the day at his home village, perhaps 200- natives, several houses on sticks, or I should say, wooded beams; and a large school house, a square box type building, with a tin roof, and thin wooded sides for walls, not much but it served it purpose. It now comes to mind as we walked through this thick foliage of a jungle at night the story he told us: his village was along side the river, "We got to keep a good eye out on the children, they run off, and get into the thick of the high grass, and the big cats come and pull them by the necks, or the snakes come and swallow them, but mothers can't be everywhere all the time, can they…" he said, rhetorically. And then he introduced us to his sister-in-law.
All of a sudden we stopped by a big tree, its trunk was perhaps thirty feet round, and its roots extended a half foot out of the ground, and a big hole was under one root, the largest root it seemed, of the tree, or what I could see of the tree.
"It'll all work out," he said looking at Rosa, and putting his stick into the hole, thinking perchance, Rosa might freak out or something. Rosa was behind me, I was about four feet from the hole, and of course our guide was almost on top of it, possibly two feet, with his stick inside of it.
Then I saw, and I'm sure Rosa saw legs coming out of the hole: extending out of the hole, not rat legs, but legs…"That'll be ok," he said, not sure if he was talking to us or the creature inside the hole. The legs turned out to be hairy, reddish-brown, huge spider legs, called a Tarantula: larger than my whole hand, legs longer than my fingers, as thick as my fingers. Rosa moved just a ting, "Where'd he come from," she said.
"It's his home," said Avelino "I woke him up."
Now Rosa was stone-still and I was amazed, the eyes of the creature were staring at me, or so it seemed, and Avelino waved his long magic wand (or stick) around its legs, as if it tranquilized it; or had him trained to stand down. Then another long legged tarantula came out, as if to either protect its mate, or join in on the festivities. But the second one never came out all the way, like the first one, it kept its guard, and remained halfway in the whole.
"Be calm Rosa," I said, I could hear her heart beating, and her breathing heavy, but she is a good sidekick when it comes to traveling, she wants to be part of everything, I can only recall once when she panicked and I had to retreat from my forward advance: it was in Glastonbury, England, on the Tor, the Great Mound, known in ancient times as Avalon, when a heard of cows, huge cows came up, and she is a small woman, and they came blocking the walkway to the top, from the bottom upwards as we were coming down, and I grabbed her as not to panic and started walking through the herd, and she pulled away and ran to the side of the mound, and I joined her, and we had to climb down the mound sideways. Oh well, one out of a hundred is not bad.
So here we were with two monstrous huge spiders, with beady eyes, staring at us, and I guess it was to me the funniest thing to see this stick tranquilize them to the point of shortening out the danger, to where there seemed not to be any.
It had been a full day, and therefore after this escapade, we went back to the lodge....
See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com |
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