“There was a really loud hissing noise coming out of the small cave crack. Later I found out that mountain lions or wildcats have been reported in that area. Reflections later....Probably on the long list of stupid things you do in your life...” Stoopid? Yes! Most people are only afraid of vultures after they are dead! My caver buddy Buford Pruitt had an identical experience last week here in Florida. We smelled the stink, then Buf crawled into the cave only to be chased out by the fluffy baby eyepluckers! I have had many close encounters with El Tigre in Belize, and other more distant encounters in other parts of Central America and northern South America. My first encounter was the closest. I had set up my first base camp waaay up the Bladen branch of the Monkey river in southern Belize. I set up my tent on a sandbar and the seven porters were some distance away sleeping in the open under a tarp so they could leave the next day. (I like to get left alone in the jungle with a stash of food for the duration, and have bad feet, hence the porters). In the morning Arturo, who is one bad hombre, woke me up laughing and said, “Missa Boose, I see you had a visitor last night!” The front paw prints of a huge male jaguar were superimposed upon my knee prints left from climbing into the tent. That placed his muzzle approximately four inches from me! The tracks showed that the tiger (as they are invariably called) had walked right up and sniffed each one of the sleeping men! On my way out of the jungle two weeks later I saw a young female jag bounding across the savanna. In the jungles of Belize Jaguars circle the camp almost every night. You can hear them but it is almost impossible to see them. In the morning the tracks are always there. It was hilarious to observe the terror of the porters who from that point on erected barricades of thorny palms which collapsed in the night eliciting horrified screams as they awoke in terror of turning into cat turds. Arturo is afraid of nothing! Some years ago Ann Harmon and I spent a festive two weeks at the headwaters of the Manatee river in Belize, visiting the giant cave and otherwise enjoying the jungle, but it was time to go. We had come by dugout canoe in two shifts, so that, and the fact that the river was rapidly dropping due to the onset of the dry season meant that there was not enough room in the dugouts for everybody, so Ann, who is amphibious, volunteered to swim/wade the ten miles or so back to "civilization". I had spent much of the time trying to master the art of "poling the dory" which means standing up in a tiny tippy dugout and using a long pole for propulsion. Paddling is not really an option except in deep water. Ann volunteered to leave early on foot with bathing suit and river shoes, and I would catch up later with the tiny one person dory and our gear. The others would come behind in the "Titanic" a huge unwieldy dugout that could carry many people but would have to be portaged often (a problem since it weighed about a ton!) Before she left Brother Moses admonished her not to swim through the small but dangerous cave at the downstream end of the trip. This little cave serves as the gateway to the Manatee, and keeps intruders from going up river. He said, " Missie Ann, you best not go throu de cave, you gots to wait for Missa Boose an de dory cuz a big crocodile be waitin for you outside!" Two days previous to this Ann and I had been exploring a remote cliff face and following the fresh tracks of a female jaguar. I generally have enough sense to stay out of caves, but Ann doesn't, so when we found yet another small entrance in the cliff face she volunteered to explore it. Almost all such caves are small, dry, and filled with Mayan artifacts. It was reasonable to suppose that it would go nowhere, so I told her I would continue ahead chopping a trail and she could catch up later. About ten minutes later I heard her shout my name. This is considered bad form in the jungle, we usually hoot like Indians, so I knew there was a problem. I ran back to find her shaking in her boots at the base of the cliff. She had crawled in about a hundred feet to discover that the cave was a Jaguar den with an angry teenaged cub which she met face to face. Luckily, Mom wasn't home, it was her tracks we had been following. Jaguars often circle the camp at night, so I was not surprised to see fresh tracks on the sandbars as soon as I headed out in the dory to try to catch up to Ann. It soon became apparent that the same jaguar was following Ann since its tracks were superimposed on hers. I didn't worry at first, but after many miles of such tracks it seemed a bit too curious for comfort. I poled as fast as I could go but couldn't catch her and began to worry. Several miles above the cave the river changes and there were no sandbars upon which to leave tracks. By this time I was really worried and racing as fast as I could go. There she was waiting at the upstream cave entrance, completely unaware that the jaguar had followed her the whole way. With great difficulty we both balanced on the tiny dory which now had about an inch of freeboard, and went through the cave. As we exited into the beautiful blue pool hung with vines, there was the crocodile waiting in the entrance with a big toothy smile. The list of Tiger encounters goes on and on. What is important is that in no instance does anyone actually get attacked by a Jaguar. It is unheard of in Belize. Panthers are a different story! Panthers (cougars, mountain lions, etc) really do attack people in order to eat them. I have had four, count ‘em, four friends who have been attacked in or near Belize. The most dramatic was when Arturo the Badass and I had just gotten back from another trip up the Bladen Branch. An adventure tour jackass was waiting for him in the village and demanded that Arturo accompany him over the Maya mountains to eventually wind up in Caracol. The proposed route would have required several weeks at minimum but the “Big man” insisted that it could be done in ten days because he had a map. All I could do was to laugh and tell him “ good luck sucker!” Here is what happened. First Arturo flatly rejected the fellow’s proposed route and instead offered to guide him up the Trio branch of the Monkey river, a much shorter and easier route, but still, one that had never been accomplished before. On the morning of day three Arturo was leading and chopping while carrying a big pack. The “big man” was behind carrying a little pack and Arturo’s gun. As Arturo stepped out from between two large boulders a big male Panther came rushing down the mountain with the clear intent of killing and eating him on the spot. Arturo said his life flashed before his eyes and he remembered the words of his mentor who had said, “You can chop de Tiger, but you can never chop de Red tiger (panther), he too fast, you must jook him!” So Turo threw out his chest and screamed “Fuck you!” and stabbed with his machete. The panther was in mid air when the machete caught him right in the nose. According to Arturo the cat did a double backflip with blood flying everywhere then ran screaming up the mountain. Turo turned to look at the Big man who was standing there trembling with the gun cradled across his arms, so Turo dropped his pack and asked “what dat ting you hold?” then grabbed the gun and ordered the Big man to pick up the pack and start walking. Suddenly the Big man had a change of plans and only wanted to go home! I later called the jackass to corroborate the story and he did. Another friend was jogging near the Belize zoo when he was accosted by a young male with clearly evil intent which forced him to walk backwards for over a mile and followed him from five feet away all the way up onto his front porch. At one point he stumbled and almost got taken. I always carry a machete. If that had happened to me I would now have a pussy hair covered vagina. (Vagina, taken directly from the Latin, is the Spanish work for sword sheath). More recently Tom Morris, a caver from Florida, was taking a morning dump on a trib of the Usumacinta in the Lacandon forest when he almost turned into a turd himself. So the bottom line is that Jaguars, like alligators, eat small prey; whereas Panthers, like crocodiles, eat large prey such as people! One other pussyfact, most people assume that bobcats are small, and most are, but adult males become huge! I recently saw one that was the size and coloration of a rottweiler, which is what I thought it was until I got close enough for a better look. It weighed well over fifty pounds and was easily large enough to take down a deer! Sleazeweazel
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