snakes Iexperienced when I was exploring the Amazon basin and thewestern slopes of the Andes looking for gold and I guess myfirst brush with mortality from serpents came about as Eddie andI were walking into Puerto Napo from camp one day. The trailbordered the Napo River on the south side and we were makingpretty good time on the twelve-mile walk. The ground wasslippery as it always was from the continual wetness of thevegetation and we were always in danger of losing our footing.Walking, as it were, consisted of articulating a series of slipsand slides and occasional falls. Well, Eddie was in front of mewhen all of a sudden he fell backwards. Thinking he tripped, Icaught him under his shoulders and helped him to regain hisfooting, but he instantly fell backwards again and there rightin front of him in the middle of the trail was a snake, halfcoiled and half erect an...

...d ready to strike! I had almost pushedEddie into the snakes’ fangs! Close! Eddie shot the snake from asafe distance. We had other encounters with snakes on theeastern slopes, but most of them were on the west side of theAndes. The first occurred when I stooped over to enter a familydwelling in the village of La Concordia on the Cayapas River. Wehad been canoeing upriver all day and it was time to set up campfor the night. Our guide made arrangements for ouraccommodations to spend the night for a few cans of Tuna Fishand a pound of coffee. Barter was the preferred method ofpayment once you were out of civilization. We walked into thehouse made of Bamboo and a hardwood called “Chonta Duro”. I havenever been able to translate it into English except for the“Duro” part, which means “Hard”. A log of this wood has a veryfibrous core that can be burned out to form a pipe of sorts. Wewere to use it to bring fresh water into our camp for washingand cooking. It can further be split lengthwise to form a verydurable flooring. It cannot be cut easily with a machete or axeand resists the saw on crosswise cuts. The blade of an ax willsimply skip off of the wood, but I digress. We sat on the flooreating supper and during the meal I glanced at the rest of theconstruction. They used the “Chonta Duro” logs as roofingtimbers and as I followed one timber from the edge of the roofto the lodge pole, I saw something in the shadows that Icouldn’t quite make out, so I took out my flashlight and shoneit right smack in the face of a fourteen foot Boa Constrictor!Our guide explained that this was a normal household pet to keepdown the rat population. That night I slept comfortably in mysleeping bag outside on the ground. Our camp upriver was builton a small plateau on a hillside and was made of Bamboo andChonta Duro timbers. We built it at ground level, as we weresixty feet above the surface of the river. The walls were onlythree feet high leaving a wide gap between the wall and the rooffor ventilation. One morning, I had just awakened and wasgetting ready to get up when, BANG! Wally had shot a snake offof the top of the wall not three feet from my head! When Ilooked over the edge of the wall, the headless body of Beige,Brown and Black four foot Fer-de-Lance Pit Viper was sprawledlifeless on the ground. This snake is one of the most dangerousof all the snakes in South America for it is aggressive and willstrike without warning. Thanks Wally! Another time, I wasgetting ready to walk out of the door of the our “House” and asI was crossing the threshold, I saw a large three foot brightorange snake crawling on the top of the wall. Another Pit Viper!I grabbed a machete and killed it! The last really good storyagain had Eddie and I as the centerpieces. It was on a Sunday,and we decided to go fishing. Now in the middle of the jungle,this is not a sporting event for we used sticks of dynamite todo the fishing for us. Those of you that have qualms about thisjust have never been hungry! We grabbed several sticks ofdynamite, caps and fuse and set off in our motor canoe upriver.The Canoe was made from a forty-foot hollowed out tree with woodplanks added to the gunwales and a transom add-on for aforty-horsepower Evinrude, which I had had shipped from theStates. Balsa logs added to the outside of the canoe at thewaterline gave added stability. We named it the Nueva Esperanzaor New Hope for good luck! I ran the canoe upriver about half amile and beached the bow on a sandbar. We had fished this areabefore with good results. Eddie was sitting on one of the plankseats and getting the Dynamite ready. We were using two sticksas we were over a deep pool of water. Eddie lit the fuse on thefirst charge and I leaned back on the Evinrude to watch theresults. After about a minute, we decided the charge wasn’tgoing to explode and Eddie prepared another while I watched andmade rude comments about him not being able to blow himself toHell! The second charge followed with the same results and Iwatched as Eddie prepare a third. The rude comments startedextending to his family lineage and as I watched, I sawsomething swimming across the river about two hundred feet away.I thought it might be an Otter and told Eddie what I was lookingat when the object lifted its head clear of the water and lookedright at us! I still couldn’t make it out but it suddenlychanged direction and started swimming towards us. I watched fora few seconds and determined it was a large snake about eightfeet long and told Eddie about it. Eddie looked and put thedynamite down and started looking for something to use as aweapon. Meanwhile, the snake was coming directly right at us andas it got closer, I could see the arrogance in its yellow eyes!He swam right up to the canoe and started to work its body ontothe Balsa sponson. The Son-of-a-Bitch wanted us for breakfast!Eddie had found a length of broken paddle in the bow and as hewas walking back to the stern of the canoe, the snake popped hishead over the gunwale! Eddie finally reached where the snake wasand smacked him several times on the head, until at last; itsuccumbed and fell back into the river with his head and abouttwo feet of his length sinking beneath the surface. Dead forsure! Eddie was so nervous that he asked me to fix the thirdcharge, which I did. I lit the fuse and instead of throwing thedynamite, I placed it very gently in the water, alongside thecanoe. I had not noticed that the motion of Eddie killing thesnake had caused the canoe to shift its position and end upright on top of the unexploded four sticks of dynamite! Mysubconscious took it into account and that’s why I placed thecharge alongside the canoe. Well, before I could say “Holysh-t”, we were greeted with a loud, thunderous explosion thatlifted the canoe, all forty feet of her, about a foot out of thewater, and slammed us back into the river, opening up a crack inthe hull running from the bow to the stern, and we startedshipping water. The only way to keep us from sinking was to findsomething to fill in the crack and stop the water from comingin! Eddie looked at me and I looked at Eddie. All we had werethe clothes on our back! It must have been a pretty sight to seetwo naked men trying to keep from sinking! We finally stabilizedthe leak and headed back to camp naked, trying to figure outwhat we would tell the others when we came upon the body of thelimp snake. Now, Eddie wanted to bring the snake into the canoeso he could skin it and use the skull for a hat decoration, andI told him in no uncertain terms that he was going to walk homeif he brought the snake into the canoe, but I laughed that wecould use the snakeskin for some Custom Business Cards. Eddieinstead put the paddle under the loop of snake below water andcarried the rest of the body on the paddle the rest of the wayto camp. I turned the canoe around facing upriver and waspreparing to land when two things happened. First Wally, who wasseventy-one, walked down the path to see if we had caughtanything, and secondly, Eddie threw the snake in a sweepingmotion so that it landed at Wally’s feet. The next thing youknow, the snake started moving, he had only been stunned! Wallydrew his machete and cut its head off. I never saw the old manmove so fast! We found out later that the snake was anotheraggressive Pit Viper called the Bushmaster, also called an “Iki”by the locals. It was over eight feet long and had a diamondshaped gray and brown pattern like a Diamondback rattler and notone, but two sets of needle sharp fangs, one primary set in thefront of the mouth and a second spare set in the rear. And youask me why I don’t like snakes, well, there’s several goodreasons! I have other snake stories, but none of them are asinteresting....