If you travel in Central and South America it is almost a given that you will meet upon an iguana or two. I have met a few.
Bert was behind the wheel in Venezuela. It is one of our favourite adventures: rent a car, look at a map and choose a path not yet travelled to see what we may find. We were assured that roads leading from Puerto La Cruz were all well maintained, even the unpaved ones. We headed out and it was a beautiful secondary road that wended its way through high grassland, rolling hills and forests. We passed some tiny villages but were looking for a particular one which, according to the road signs was having a fiesta and rodeo.
We rounded a bend and there in the middle of the road was a magnificent iguana. It was huge and brown. It calmly turned its head as Bert braked and looked at us. It spread its dewlap which to me looked like a menacing warning flag signalling: “Beware!” I looked out the window and said: “Shoo”. Brilliant! Obliquely staring back at me with an insouciance that seemed scornful, the iguana just stood there. Bert could not go forward, had no room to go around so we just sat and looked at the iguana. Bert blew the horn, I continued with my awe inspiring ‘shoo’, we threw it a half banana which it sniffed, ate but still it stood motionless. We too sat immobile.
After perhaps thirty agonizing minutes the iguana waved its head from side to side and with one last supercilious look strolled across the road and disappeared into the bushes.
Our visit to the Galapagos Islands was taken with immense anticipation- Darwin, Origin of the Species, huge turtles, wildlife endemic to the islands. WOW! We scrambled over some rocks and came upon an imposing marine iguana just lying there, basking in the sun. It resembled its prehistoric dinosaur ancestors. The guide was saying this was the only lizard that can live and forage in the sea and is found only in the Galapagos. He also said something about them sneezing salt but I did not hear much as I was just gazing at the fantastic creature that seemed to hold the patent on looking seriously bored. Soon he had had enough sun and so abandoning his warming ritual he slid into the water and soon was out of sight. He was ready for lunch and had gone to feed on the algae that grew on the rocks in the sea.
Now it is some years later and we are Colombia. We were admiring the peacocks, amazingly beautiful parrots, macaws, swans and flamingos. What a show this was. We kept finding more and more beautiful birds with different coloration. Far up in a tree there was a rustling. We looked up and there was the mother of all iguanas calmly jumping from one branch to another. This was a green iguana. They call this the ‘common iguana’. Nothing about it looked common to me. It seemed that it was much too large to be jumping from branch to branch which swayed as it landed.
As I looked up, the huge lizard jumped DOWN to the ground. “Jesus, Maria y Jose.” I thought I would die. The guide calmly told us they can do that kind of jump without injuring themselves. Forgive me but I was not concerned about any injury but thinking about one landing on me. I noticed the only calm one was the guide. I saw one fellow putting his wife in front of him. Some knight! Many in the group looked up to see three more calmly eating the tender shoots seemingly oblivious to the stupid tourists gawking at them in fear and trepidation.
The first iguana I ever met I ate. It tasted like chicken? It was being digested before we found out we had eaten iguana. We were High School students from Jamaica in Mexico City at an International Youth Conference. We were busy most of the day but had lots of time for sightseeing and cultural visits arranged by the conference organizers or by our host families. This night we were to be taken to an authentic Mexican restaurant for a fabulous dinner. The meal was absolutely delicious and we tasted many different dishes. We all loved the meat enchiladas.
On the way home we asked our driver about the great tasting enchiladas. Our driver did not speak English and was rather silent but suddenly he spoke with animation and very fast but we all heard ‘lagarto’, ‘ muy grande’ ‘delicioso’. I had stopped listening at ‘lagarto’. Iguana is food. I asked: “Iguana?”. “Si, si. Iguana. Es muy delicioso.” There was a collective gasp. One fellow threw up immediately. That was good as we concentrated on the clean up and not the iguana meal.
The Meander: When I consider other culinary delights I have tasted on our travels this is by far one of the least strange though it headed the list for a long time.
Incidentally, the fiesta and rodeo featured a few heads of cattle for auction, some sway-backed horses and a girl of 14 years old who had the voice of an angel. Her family surrounded her and collected tips as she sang. We could have listened to her forever.