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Writer's pictureDan Short

Trek to the shop

Rather than waking up at the crack of dawn again the next morning, we both woke up at about 6:30, had the usual breakfast of rice and beans which was by this time becoming the worst part of the day. We thought if we wanted to keep morale high then we needed to make a trip to the shop to buy food for the week. This was a task that is easier said than done. The nearest shop is an hour and thirty minute hike through the jungle and all six rivers. After breakfast, I tried to get some footage of the common basilisk as Aster told me she had seen some the day before I arrived. The common basilisk, otherwise known as the Jesus Christ lizard for its ability to run on water when it’s alarmed by something, is an animal that I’ve been fascinated by ever since seeing them brilliantly captured in the BBC series Life back in 2009. I have never quite grasped conceptually how an animal that size can run on water. That flaps of skin on its toes capture air bubbles under its feet are enough for it to essentially run on. I couldn’t leave Tamandua without at least trying to get some footage of them.


I wandered down to the bank, camera and tripod in hand. Upon what was almost my first step onto the sand, two common basilisks simultaneously ran across the river onto the rocks and up into the forest. The spectacle was all over in less than a second. It’s something I’ve always wanted to see. So, in that sense it was special to fulfill what was essentially a dream of mine but I really wanted to get some footage of it. I turned on the camera, corrected the settings in preparation and walked along the bank with it to see if i could find some more. I thought that I’d walk along the edge of the bank in hope that the bushes would give me enough time to get close enough to the bend in the river where it reveals the next section of the river. Here, I could put my camera into place before my cover was blown. At the last possible position of cover, I placed my camera down. Before I could point the camera at the right part of the river, let alone correct the focus, another two ran across the river and into the trees. To get a half decent shot, I definitely needed to prepare for next time in the right way rather than just react. I needed the camera to be in place, in focus and ideally out of sight, ready for when they run. None of these things were going to be easy to do without being seen but I had to try at the very least. Thinking back to the shots I’d managed to get in Costa Rica before this, I had been lucky that many of the animals weren’t overly cautious of me being there. Of course, there were limits to how close I could get but the basilisks wouldn’t wait even a second after the very first sight of me. So, while the last couple of days hadn’t been the most successful in terms of accumulating footage, I consciously learnt some quite vital lessons about being both prepared and discrete. These are qualities that I already know were key to filming wildlife but it had been all too easy to not include these at the forefront of my mind until actually learning them the hard way. That being said, despite these lessons, I still had a strong sense that getting a good shot of the common basilisk would take considerable time, effort and some smart thinking.


Soon after returning to the station, we thought we’d be better to go to the shop today as neither of us wanted rice and beans ever again, let alone for dinner tonight. The important choice we had to make was either to walk through the hottest part of the day or to walk back in the dark. Given that it was the first time we were taking on the journey and the higher probability of encountering snakes and other sharp toothed animals in the dark, we chose to leave earlier in the day. The walk across some quite difficult terrain was unbearably hot. The roads closest to the village, far out of the jungle were incredibly steep. It was genuinely exhausting. Once there, we bought enough food to last us at least a week and I topped up my sim card which I hadn’t been able to use yet. We picked up the 20 litre container of water which Danys had left at Alan’s house on the way back. I carried it on alternating shoulders all the way back to the station making the walk, especially the wading, much more difficult. After all the sweat the walk had drained from me, we finally had some decent food. We made vegetable curry, which at the time felt like the best and most flavoursome meal I’d ever eaten. Meal time could now return to being one of my favourite parts of the day.


When brushing our teeth later that night, we saw something moving in the grass a few metres away. Sat there, coiled in the grass in a defensive position was a fer-de-lance snake. It was about the same size as the one I saw in Puerto Viejo. These snakes really aren't a joke. It was a very sharp warning to wear at least shoes at night. The fer-de-lance is one of the most venomous snakes in Central America and has a very aggressive, defensive temperament meaning it's more likely to strike you than most other snakes. Being in the middle of the jungle with no mobile phone signal for at least a 20 minute walk, being bitten would almost certainly have been fatal. In hindsight, it makes me shudder to think that I dared get that close to take a picture.


Fer-de-lance

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