The rainforest is a wall of broccoli-topped black as we cruise along the shore of the Yavari River. It's another starless night in the remote Peruvian Amazon. The house and research boats are an hour in our wake as we motor toward Iparinga Lake. Pedro says there are lots of alligators – their massive snouts lined with inch-long teeth that rip prey apart.
That's good. We are going to catch them.
Or so Pedro, our reptile expert, claims. Sitting in the wooden boat, I have my doubts about wrangling a prehistoric predator, a job usually relegated to backwoods brutes with missing digits. Siblings to alligators, these South American caimans can grow to eight feet.
Pedro rides the bow, scanning the shore with a super-strength search light. I sit behind him, my camera hanging off my neck and wearing my head lamp, hoping I don’t have to use the "jungle potty". In flood season, there is no shore, nowhere to make a pit stop. The bucket in the back of the boat is the bathroom.
The jungle heat has finally cooled off; midnight actually brings a cool breeze. Patches of tangled brush and leaves light up then disappear into the darkness as we slowly chug along. Two glowing eyes signal a jackpot. Caiman eyes reflect red when caught in the white light.
"Para!" Pedro whispers. Juan cuts the motor and we drift to shore. Pedro scans the brush for our elusive reptile, but he gets away before we can get our hands on him. After another one escapes, we decide to try hunting in another country.
It's an easy border crossing. Brazil is on the other side.
"Maybe the caimans speak Portuguese," I offer in my battered Spanish. I call them over. Maybe they listen, because a moment later, Pedro is pointing to a bundle of branches and leaves just off to our left. Genis, our guide, leans over and after some discussion on which brush the caiman has slipped under to hide, he suddenly launches off the side of the boat, disappearing into the tangle.
The Brazilians have a tiny bit of mud mixed in with their flood waters. Genis is off and sloshing. I hand over the noose and Pedro offers it into the thicket.
His light is dead on, but I can't see Genis or the caiman. There are rustles and twigs breaking in the night.
The noose is a long stick with a wire loop at the end. Genis is going to try and pitch it over the caiman's neck and pull it taut, pinning the reptile and hauling him into the boat, fighting.
Alison, Charles and I cram up to the bow craning for a peek. Leaves feather my face; I wonder if they are spiders dropping their webs to hitch a ride, but I'm not budging from my front-row seat. Minutes later, the noose appears out of the thicket, empty. I take it from Genis and settle back with the bad news. "He didn’t get it, guys."
Charles and Alison sit down, disappointed. Ah well. We've got all night and a few more days of field work with our Amazon scientists. I gaze up at a single star peeking out of the ceiling of black and check my bladder. So far so good.
"Holy!" I holler in surprise. Unbelievable! I’m torn between making a run for it and standing up and cheering for Superman. The caiman is squirming and fighting, but Genis holds it tight and Pedro slips a small PVC tube into its jaw. It clamps down with a death grip. That plastic is our safety net so he won’t snap on us.
Pedro ties a piece of rope around it and then its front and hind legs together, on its back, so we don’t have a loose caiman sprinting in the boat. It's not a big daddy so Pedro offers me the job. I jump at it and settle cross-legged in the bottom of the boat and lean in for a better look. I get as close as I can without being freaked, about a foot.
It's about two feet long and kind of cute. He's olive green with tan and black eyes and infinite point-chiseled teeth. He doesn't blink. I run my hands along his back. His coarse skin is a tiny suit of armor.
Pedro hands me the metal measuring stick. I press it against its forehead and run it to the tip of his snout. I measure again from the tip to tail, then clip the hook of a hand-held scale to the rope around his front legs and lift the little guy up. He can take my arm off and he's fascinating. And he's well secured, so I want a good long look.
Our roles reversed, he's wary of my intentions. I hope he's not too scared. He's still not blinking and he's officially a lightweight at maybe three months old. Full grown, he'll be a hefty eight feet or more, cooling off in the river in the blazing heat and prowling for birds, spiders and whatever else carelessly swims by at night.
I take hold of him and gently lift him up beside my chin for a keepsake photo. I am in the Amazon helping renown scientists with Earthwatch Institute catch caimans. Tomorrow, I'll be hiking in the jungle searching for endangered red uakari monkeys or scanning the waters for pink dolphins. Helping to count animals like the caimans, will compliment scientists' research to prove the diversity of wildlife in the work area and hopefully, convince government officials to make Lago Preto a permanent preservation area. For now, it's safe for 40 years. Wrangling giant reptiles is all part of the fun.
I say farewell to the caiman before I hand it back to Pedro, who grips its head and tail while Genis unties it. A second later, he's bent in half over the side, holding our friend over the black river. I can just make out his silhouette as it realizes it's free and shoves off with its front legs.
When his head plunges below the water, he loosens his bite and the tube bobs to the surface. Genis pulls up the rope. Our light captures the tip of his head for just a moment longer before he disappears into the jungle night.