Spiders?

Today I had some fun. As it turned out yesterday´s moqueca set me back a bit and had to spend some extra time in the hotel room as a result. When I finally got out and felt good enough to get some excercise, I decided to try to get to the famous Prainha, a nice beach spot 40 minutes from downtown by trail. Sometimes I like to do things the hard way, so I began my hike on the beach itself. This worked fine for the first three coves, all very nice beaches I have seen before, some with great surf breaks and nice social vibes going on. I began my crawl over the next rocky promontory to the next cove, noting that no one else was doing the same. Whatever. Soon a beautiful cove came into view, with just one long boarder working the waves and few folks lounging on the sand. Sweet. As I approached I detected a problem. A river. Again, and no boat man this time. Checking it out thoroughly I figured it was impassible without complete immersion, which was not going to do my camera or anything else any good. I turned around but thought I saw a path up above through the trees. Ha ha. After some climbing I soon found myself past anything that could be called a path, obstinately thrashing through brush with long leaves that would grab my skin and tear at it. Then I remembered one of the local guides talking about poisonous snakes. Ok fine. I turned around and went back the way I had come to the previous beach, got on the road, and walked around to the next cove.

I was about ready for a pick me up, maybe just a coke or something, so I wandered over to one of the barracas. Also, I had been hearing about tapioca, a local specialty. To me tapioca is some weird pudding stuff- who cares? He had a sign up, so I had to enquire. He handed me his menu. Apparently it can be prepared as a savory thing- cheese, ham, etc, or sweet, coconut, banana cinammon. I went sweet. Five minutes later he handed a white taco. I guess they make some kind of flour from the tapioca, of a coarse texture, and then make a crepe or tortilla from it. It is thick and tasty. Inside he put fried bananas, shaved coconut, doce de leite, and cinammon, yummmm. Yet another totally foreign and totally great thing to eat. As I ate I watched an italian and israeli take on three local children at a game of small court sand soccer. One kid had a harelip, the other no hand. I am continually shocked by the prevalence of deformity and birth defect here. However, they were having a great time and were pretty good with their feet. I asked my chef how to get to Prainha. He said it was too late for that, and an Italian added that it was rather hard to find. The chef said he was a guide and he could take me, for a small fee. I´ve been discovering that everyone in Itacre is a "guide". I decided to ignore them both, and set off down the trail.

I had hardly gone 100 yds before there was a fork. How about left? I kept going. Another fork. Oh well, maybe I wouldn´t find Prainha but I would have a nice walk? Next thing I was walking under a suspended bridge flying off into the trees. Cool. I found the path leading to it and was soon swinging through the trees over a small creek. Who needs Prainha anyways? At the end of that were a few more forks, but I wasn´t much caring anymore. Soon I found a zip line strung through the trees. No one was around and the cradle was missing, so I had to skip that thrill. I had been seeing some signs about and was pretty sure I was trespassing at this point, but I was having fun. Who needs guides, and who´s scared of poisonous snakes? Rounding the next corner I saw a row of leaves on the ground. This wouldn't have been remarkable, since I was in a forest and there were leaves everywhere, except these leaves were... moving? They were leaf cutter ants! A long trail of them, carry little bits of leaves hither and yon, up the trunk of a tree and along the trail for 30 feet or so. Next thing I knew a lightning bug was flashing around my knees. This was really getting good. I heard waves crashing and thought I might find a beach after all. It was getting a little dark but I figured I had time. Right about then I thought to myself, they probably have spiders here? I had barely formed the thought when a strand broke across my bare chest. I smiled to myself, just a little nervously.

A few steps further on a dead leaf hung motionless in the middle of the path. I waved my arm in front of me but met little resistance, the web was old and broken. I kept walking. The path turned downhill through the mud, and seemed to get darker. This particular fork seemed less well travelled than the others, but the ocean sound was getting stronger. If this was Hollywood, here is right when the audience starts yelling. "Turn around!" "Go home!" "You idiot!" Well I didn´t hear you. My left ear is still a bit funny from carnaval anyway. I carefully threaded my way down the slippery path, when something caught my peripheral vison. In slow motion, my head turned left and noticed, lazily and then in horror, a freaking tarantula one and a half feet from my face, above and to the left! From the angle of its body I could tell that I was already in its web. Sure enough nerves all over the front of my body were sending the message, there is something here! My legs, last to get with the program, skidded to a late stop while I whipped my head and torso back. Frozen in a back bend, I locked all eight eyes with a really big bug right over my head. Uuggghhhhhhhh! We both made our minds up simultaneously that we weren´t cool with this. In an acrobatic feat made possible only by sheer panic, I sprinted backwards up the muddy slope maintaining my back bend. Luckily the spider decided to stick with the remains of his web rather than come with me, and soon we were at a safe distance. I took a last look, decided I really didn´t like the way he looked creeping around up there, and decided I was done with this hike.

I retraced my steps quickly though it had gotten quite dark suddenly, and there were all those forks. Also I was not trusting the air in front of my face anymore, and how come there were leaves hanging around everywhere now? Something rustled over my foot while I scanned the trees intently for more webs. I jumped and something brushed my face. Moving quicker I tried not to decimate the leaf cutter ants on my way down. Things had gotten really loud too. The crickets were buzzing, birds were making all kinds of not very bird like sounds, and then there were all those weird screaming sounds and sounds from an african safari film. I couldn´t move fast enough. By the time I hit that swinging bridge I was running. I eventually made it out of the forest with near darkness and this time wasn´t minding being on the main road or the streetlights one bit. Just to round out the adventure, as I passed a cow pasture some birds started making circles around me, flying just a foot off the ground. Watching the streetlight shine off their wings, I realized these birds were... bats! Well they weren´t much interested in me anyways, and I like bats. Moral of the story- we´re not in Cali anymore, Toto!