I quietly decided I would avoid any trip to the rainforests in Peru. Any spider whose size is compared to a meal that would feed an entire family is about a thousand times too big, in my book.
Sam, unfortunately, had no similar reservations. So when he said he really, really wanted to go to the jungle, I resigned myself to scary sightings and sleepless nights. We planned to go to La Merced, the closest jungle to Lima.
I am happy to report that I had zero goliath bird-eating spider sightings. In fact, I had no fear-inducing spider sightings at all. We only really saw one live giant spider during our Peruvian adventures: at our hotel in Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu, I found this in our bathroom...
Sam, unfortunately, had no similar reservations. So when he said he really, really wanted to go to the jungle, I resigned myself to scary sightings and sleepless nights. We planned to go to La Merced, the closest jungle to Lima.
I am happy to report that I had zero goliath bird-eating spider sightings. In fact, I had no fear-inducing spider sightings at all. We only really saw one live giant spider during our Peruvian adventures: at our hotel in Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu, I found this in our bathroom...
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| Check out those pincers! |
… and requested that Sam deal with it. He carefully maneuvered it into the trash can, walked it over to the open window, and threw it out onto the sidewalk below. While I was grateful to have the spider out of our room, it made me cringe to walk down streets after that, wondering if I’d have a giant spider with pincers flung onto me as I walked beneath open windows. “I made sure there weren’t any pedestrians before I threw it out!” Sam said. Not everyone would be so careful!
The spider escapade left a big impression on Simon. He started requesting edits when we’d sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”: he wanted us to sing “The Very Giant Spider” and recount the story of Sam flinging it out the window.
And the other "spider" we encountered was on a creatively designed playground - I heartily approve of these spiders!
So, no spiders in our jungle, thankfully. What we did find was beautiful green jungle that didn’t appear to be much different from other green, wooded areas we’ve been in before. There was wonderfully warm, occasionally hot sun, in contrast to chilly Lima, and gorgeous night skies. And there were strange conversations.
We hadn’t seen stars since staying at a beach near the Ecuatorian border in October. One night we were stargazing when Gloria, on an extended vacation from the US, walked by. “This is a great place to see UFOs!” she said. “You mean shooting stars?” asked Sam. “No, UFOs,” she corrected him. “They go like this,” she drew a zigzag pattern across the sky. “It’s really easy to see them. We see them all the time. It’s a little too overcast to see them tonight, but look tomorrow.” “Okay,” Sam said. I am sorry to report that we saw no UFOs, but we did see lots of activity nearby at the air force base. Connection, anyone?
On our coffee tour day, Simon fell asleep as we were en route to lunch. When we arrived, our tour guide/driver told me to just let Simon sleep in the backseat of the taxi while we all left and ate in the restaurant. Hmmm.... no. When he later saw Sam holding Simon, still sleeping, at the table, he asked me why I didn’t leave him in the car. I said, “He’d wake up in a strange place and not know where we were. It would scare him.” He nodded. “You need to get him cured of that. Kids shouldn’t be scared of things like that. You could just take him to the curandera, the healer, and she would get rid of it.”
The spider escapade left a big impression on Simon. He started requesting edits when we’d sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”: he wanted us to sing “The Very Giant Spider” and recount the story of Sam flinging it out the window.
And the other "spider" we encountered was on a creatively designed playground - I heartily approve of these spiders!
We hadn’t seen stars since staying at a beach near the Ecuatorian border in October. One night we were stargazing when Gloria, on an extended vacation from the US, walked by. “This is a great place to see UFOs!” she said. “You mean shooting stars?” asked Sam. “No, UFOs,” she corrected him. “They go like this,” she drew a zigzag pattern across the sky. “It’s really easy to see them. We see them all the time. It’s a little too overcast to see them tonight, but look tomorrow.” “Okay,” Sam said. I am sorry to report that we saw no UFOs, but we did see lots of activity nearby at the air force base. Connection, anyone?
On our coffee tour day, Simon fell asleep as we were en route to lunch. When we arrived, our tour guide/driver told me to just let Simon sleep in the backseat of the taxi while we all left and ate in the restaurant. Hmmm.... no. When he later saw Sam holding Simon, still sleeping, at the table, he asked me why I didn’t leave him in the car. I said, “He’d wake up in a strange place and not know where we were. It would scare him.” He nodded. “You need to get him cured of that. Kids shouldn’t be scared of things like that. You could just take him to the curandera, the healer, and she would get rid of it.”
While I had zero intention of taking Simon to the curandera, I was intrigued. He told me that the woman who ran our guesthouse had taken her 6-year-old daughter to the curandera for her fear of large dogs. “The curandera passes metal all over your body, then puts it into water, where it assumes the shape of your fear. Then based on what the fear is, different things like eggs and leaves are applied to your body.” He said his fear of snakes was cured that way when he was a little boy. Somehow I think Simon would be more fearful of the cure than the original issue.
We’ve been calling this trip “jungle lite” since, given that it was the entrance to the jungle region, we didn’t see the type of animals or arachnids we’d see deeper in. This means that Sam’s desire to see the jungle was not quenched by this trip, unfortunately. He says, “Next time, we are going deep, deep into the jungle.” I will figure out how to avoid that trip when it becomes a reality. For me, though, this trip was one time when I was thoroughly satisfied with the lite version.
We’ve been calling this trip “jungle lite” since, given that it was the entrance to the jungle region, we didn’t see the type of animals or arachnids we’d see deeper in. This means that Sam’s desire to see the jungle was not quenched by this trip, unfortunately. He says, “Next time, we are going deep, deep into the jungle.” I will figure out how to avoid that trip when it becomes a reality. For me, though, this trip was one time when I was thoroughly satisfied with the lite version.
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