“Buenos dias!” called Señor from just outside the mosquito net. “Mira!”

We obediently raised the mosquito net and I put on my glasses. It was 7 a.m. Propping myself on my elbows, I could see an armadillo about a foot from our noses. It was an interesting naked little fellow with a few wiry hairs. It was also dead, with a gunshot to its neck just behind the ear.

Señor said Señora would be cooking it for breakfast; did we want any?

We said we would try it, then swiftly consulted the Neotropical Companion, our useful book on the flora, fauna and ecology of the New World tropics. Armadillos are incredibly common, as it turns out. So the Professor and I each ate a quarter of the beast with no problems. It was delicious, very much like good pork, and Señora served it with sautéed red onions, which marries well with both pork and armadillo. It was a nice change from fish, though I never was unhappy to eat fish.

(We hadn’t only eaten fish. Once or twice we ate pasta tossed in a light tomato-onion-chicken bouillon sauce and served with boiled eggs. Señora apologized for this, as she did for every meal that did not involve fresh meat and three kinds of starch, but The Professor was so happy.)

After breakfast, Señor, the Professor and I all boarded our canoe. Leaving Señora behind at camp, we returned to our trail of the previous night. We hiked through the rainforest to a tapir salt lick – a place where tapirs come to eat dirt. We had come there last night hoping to see tapirs, but had not. It was by an uprooted tree, and very muddy. Señor told us that people who hunt tapirs will sometimes re-salt a salt lick by peeing on it; I think I have mentioned that their diet is very salty. We did see some tapir tracks. It appears to be a large animal, but I have not seen one in the wild.

As we were walking, Señor cut a length of vine. It bled with a white juice, which he motioned to me to put over my mouth. “For your insides,” he said in Spanish; I had told him about the worms. I let the vine drip into my mouth for a few seconds, and it had a cool and mild taste. I asked him if I should have more, and he said no. The Professor tried a drop, thinking that dentro referred to teeth rather than insides.

I felt a bit funny for about 10 minutes after that, but it could easily have been the heat. I am happy to report, however, that the medicine appears to have worked, although of course I will see my doctor for a checkup after I return to San Francisco.

We returned to the cabana, and Señora prepared us fried fish, salad, yuca, rice and lemonade for lunch. Delicious. We were supposed to head back to the ramshackle cabana for another night after lunch, but there was a dark storm on the horizon. We should wait out the rain, Señor said.

We napped in our hammocks. Later, I opened up the Neotropical Companion, and Señor taught me the Spanish words for animals in the photos. I, in turn, taught him some English. He had a sheet of practical sentences in English written out, but he wanted to know more.

The storm was a long time coming. After a while, Señor asked us what we thought of waiting out the storm, sleeping in the same place, and getting up at 3 am. We could boat to the old cabana, have breakfast, and then continue on to the ranger station for the night. As The Professor observed, Señor and Señora seemed very happy to be in this nicer cabana, with a few of their good fisherman friends, a solid roof and happy memories of when they had lived here. So we were happy to oblige Señor on his plan, especially since getting rained on in the cabana of the vultures was not especially appealing.

We ate fried eggs and popcorn for dinner, and turned in early. As I was preparing for bed, I took out my contact lenses and washed them with solution. This was the first time I had done so in public, and Señora asked me if they were for my vision. She had never seen contact lenses before, so I showed them to her. She told me she is a little nearsighted, which is astonishing to me given how many animals she personally spotted high in branches. The Professor told her he prefers his glasses.

I should mention that the Professor came to this adventure without any Spanish at all, though he had some Italian and French, which are similar. I think this did not impress our hosts, but they – and I – became impressed with how quickly he picked up some of the language.

– The Private Eye