I found myself in a staring contest today with an orange iguana that was about the size of my leg. The hotel that houses the pool we visited apparently just lets them cruise the grounds at their leisure, and I flipped over onto my stomach to his tilted head and hazel eye giving me the once over. Having forgotten a bit of my 6th grade Earth Science, I had to ask Lisa, "He's harmless, right?" before I could completely relax while his orange-y spikes and freakishly long back middle toes were undulating across the concrete towards my chair. I only had one more question before I would let my appendages dangle in front of his Jurassic Park-like face: "Umm, and what do they eat? Like insects and stuff, right?" I was clearly showing off my intelligence in these glowing moments of brilliance, but if you had a small dinosaur-type creature invading your personal space, you'd do a little fact checking of your own.
He then proceeded to saunter over to my board shorts lying crumpled in a heap and lick them. I ignored Lisa's "Mmm, tastes like American" comment while I quickly tried to think of what I was going to do if he walked off with them in his mouth. Did I want to get in a tug of war with a giant iguana? Let me think about that one... NO. Luckily, some other hotel patron distracted him with the cherry from her drink, and once his rotating eye caught a glimpse, he spent the next little bit attempting to get a hold of it with his absence of teeth. Which made me smile. And want to pet it, spikes and all. Iguanas and blowfish - I'm already loving this Mexican menagerie.
My friend in preschool had an iguana named Iggy. I used to pretend that I wasn't scared of him, but he'd stick out his tongue at me and I'd go running. I actually had a nightmare once that Iggy grew to super size and demolished Chicago. I don't know if I had ever seen a Japanese monster movie before, but that's basically what it was like.
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