Crocodiles and codgers

There is was again, the orange bulge-bellied boat with the magnificent aqua-green chipped painted insides. I was delighted to see the boat again, and when a small group of men was pulling it off the sand into the water, I told one VERY bucked-toothed fellow how much I loved it. He said with a puffed up but scrawny chest that he had painted it. He grinned his horrible but winning smile and then showed me his eyeball, which was bright red because he gotten a fish hook in it. A bundle of energy, the man had on a bathingsuit that balanced precariously at the bottom of his right hip as though it might slip down any moment. He beckoned me to follow.

Now, it probably isn't every woman who wolud follow a fellow like this, but his energy and his gait were so full of bounce and enthusiasm, I couldn't resist. He wove in and out of the small fishermen's houses, back to a swamp where he pointed, practically jumping up and down. There in the water was a large, complacent crocodile, skimming the water and occasionally pulling up his head to show off his teeth. He hovered along the shore for some time and then moved into the middle of the swamp; my friend, named Miquel - what else? - said there were four of them in there, but the fishermen keep them well fed with fish heads and such so that they didn't fear that they'd come ashore. He did suggest that sometimes they ate little dogs. Gulp. There was a woman standing near me who held a baby, and Miquel was jesting about throwing the baby in the water; the baby didn't think it was too funny.

The swamp was really quite magical in a spooky but awesome way with reflections and shadows contending for space. I told Miguel that I had to walk back to Bejuco, and he told me that I could come back for fresh fish tomorrow morning at 7:30; I still have fillets from the other night, so I bagged it and went running instead.

I walked the hour and a half back, watching the sun begin to dip down lower and more golden in the sky. Oh, my, what we take for granted! The long shadows and the dusting of gilt make me chuckle to remember a passage in Alan Holinghurst's The Line of Beauty where he writes, "Like his hero Henry James, Nick felt that he could "stand a great deal of gilt" (ever the academic, I shall give you the proper citation page number 5).

People were pouring onto the beach by the time I returned, compelled all by the glories and the gilt of the sunset, but my feet were sore from the sand, I was thirsty, and supper awaited - as did a beer! This is the vista across the little stream toward the beach. It doesn't look half bad either, as they say!-