“Yo vi una araña!”

The rain was the least of my worries. I had gotten used to it the first few hours. Besides, what else would I expect in Bahia Solano, Colombia, arguably the rainiest city in the world? I was more afraid of slipping on one of the mossy rocks we were using for stepping stones. I was already feeling the throb from a twisted ankle, so I walked slowly and methodically, paying careful attention to how and where each step was placed. I was relieved when we reached a tree that had fallen in the river. I felt my forehead unwrinkle and it was then I realized I was concentrating so hard on walking. The tree was much easier to tread than the stones that were slippery and had the river rushing over them almost up to my knees.
Having passed the tree and gone back to concentrating on my steps with a wrinkled forehead, I almost didn’t notice when Elkin yelled something in Spanish. Our translator had chosen not venture out with us this time, so I had no way of knowing what he was saying to me. He was pointing and yelling and I was getting nervous because I wasn’t sure if what he was saying was important or just informative. I motioned and pointed and tried to decipher his babble, but it was to no avail.
After much frustration, he slowed down and said each word as though he were talking to a stupid person and put motions with them so that I could understand. “JOE,” he yelled pounding on his chest as though to indicate himself; then, “BEE,” dramatically pointing to his eye and pulling his eyelid down so I would know he saw something. He ended his sentence with widening eyes, and by slowly emphasizing each syllable of the last phrase with a bobbing head: “OON-UH AH-DAHN-YUH!” With his last bit of babble, he walked in the direction he was pointing and pointed to a specific rock. I had lost my contacts earlier when I fell in the river, so I could not figure out why it was so important for him to tell me that he saw a rock. After all, there were hundreds of them at the bottom of the river.
Exasperated and tired of trying to understand Spanish, I gave in and walked over to the rock so that we could move on. My fingers were beginning to prune and my clothes were clinging to me with no hope of drying out unless I got inside the hotel, so I was in a hurry. I was planning on just humoring him and acting amazed at the stupid rock. I was in the midst of devising my plan and my dramatic amazement when I got close enough to realize what he was actually pointing at.
There was a spider as big as my hand resting on the rock. I am not afraid of spiders, but I was in the jungle and I didn’t know what this one was capable of, not to mention that it was the largest spider I had ever seen. For all I knew, it could have been some undiscovered species of jumping spiders native to the Rio Choco that jumps on its prey and quickly wraps it in super-strength web, and I could look mighty tasty. These things were running through my mind and I almost ran for my life, but I decided since Elkin did not display the least amount of fear, it was probably okay to stand a safe distance away and look. I did decide to stay far enough away, though, so that if it did decide to jump at me I would see it coming and have time to turn and dart away before it viciously devoured me in one gulp.
We stopped and admired for a minute and Elkin wouldn’t stop with that Spanish babble. He kept speaking to me like I understood. I just nodded and smiled and tried to make facial expressions according to his tone of voice. Mike, our translator, was waiting for us in the lobby when we returned and I was finally able to communicate with Elkin about the spider. As it turns out, it was merely a garden spider. It was not poisonous or malicious as my imagination had led me to believe. I don’t recall the specific name of the spider, but I know that Elkin did mention that he had never seen one quite so large. That explained why he was pointing at it, why he was amazed, and why he thought I would be interested.