Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter (25 page)

The first is the giant anaconda. Even the garden-variety version can grow in excess of fifteen feet, but this long-rumored recluse said to inhabit the tributaries of the Amazon is reported to be more than double that. We fly west to Manaus, a derelict boomtown perched at the intersection of the Amazon and Rio Negro. In the nineteenth century, this was the gilded empire of European rubber barons who made a fortune extracting the jungle’s natural latex. Despite the isolation of the city, wealthy business owners erected lavish estates and even constructed an opera house to the tune of $10 million. It is said, however, that half the singers of a visiting opera company died of yellow fever before their first performance. Eventually Manaus fell into disrepair but is today undergoing an eco-traveler renaissance. Even the opera house is back in operation, after sitting underneath a dim marquee for nearly a hundred years. (Singers are also now properly vaccinated.)

We begin at the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia. Here we meet with Dr. William Ernest, the coordinator of biodiversity research. The doctor illuminates the difficulty of proving (or dismissing) the case for the giant anaconda, reminding us that the Amazon basin is about the size of the entire continental United States. Less than 4 percent of this behemoth ecosystem has been scientifically cataloged or systematically explored.

At the nearby Manaus Snake Research Center, we meet with Dr. John Francisco, a herpetologist and veterinarian. He tells me that, while many consider the existence of a giant anaconda unlikely, it is biologically possible. He also offers to give an up-close look at one of three anacondas in captivity at the facility.

The process of observing the anacondas is questionable from the start. I’m asked to descend a ladder into a partially flooded pit with Dr. Francisco and two other specialists. Once we get to the bottom, I hang back and let them do the work of coaxing a ten-foot predatory snake out of the water.

Any illusion I had about safety goes right out the window as the men break into an impromptu Three Stooges routine. They’re slipping, bumping into one another, and generally not catching a snake. Eventually they manage to subdue one of the angry serpents and invite me over to help hold it. The snake is thick and powerful, and has a broad head with an intimidating jaw. I ask the doctor how many times he’s been bit; he beams and replies, “Never.”

Not five minutes later he’s pointing out the extremely sharp and numerous teeth on the snake (stop me if you know where this is going) and,
of course
, the snake snaps at him. In an instant the doc’s index finger is inside the snake’s mouth, and the other two guys rush to pry it open and release the bloody digit. If a herpetologist at a snake research center can’t control one of these things, what chance do I have?

Nearly all eyewitness sightings of the giant anaconda take place deep in the jungle interior, which means we’re going to need a boat. We proceed to the docks and charter the paddle ship from the
Steamboat Willie
cartoon. Setting a course and steering the enormous vessel away from the city, we begin to glide along the glassy waters of this four-thousand-mile-long river.

We go ashore in a small village and interview an eyewitness named Damien who tells us about a nearly one-hundred-foot snake that thrashed his boat and forced him into the water, where he swam for dear life. In another encampment we meet Elias, who tells us that he watched a fifty-foot anaconda coil around his friend, dragging him below the surface. The men sound terrifyingly sincere, and as we hike to a clearing near the site of the most recent attack, I’m suddenly filled with trepidation about being out here after dark. We set up base camp at 8:00 p.m. and manage to run into a snake by 8:37 p.m. It’s not an anaconda. In fact, it’s probably worse. It’s tiny, maybe a foot long, and sitting at eye level on a branch near our camp. One of our local guides spots it. “Dangerous,” he whispers. “No antivenom.”

Later in the evening, Brad spots a pair of eyes on one of the IR cams. We sweep the area and, just under my flashlight beam, I see something turn over on the ground. It’s an anaconda. Not giant, but certainly big enough to make me jump back. We wrangle the snake and measure it at just less than ten feet. I’m also careful to not put my fingers too close to its mouth. Shortly after, the rain forest lives up to its name and sheets of water explode out of the sky.

I spend much of the next day swaying in a hammock on the lower deck of our boat as we steam farther and farther from civilization. We come to an aboriginal village and meet the chief and his family. He explains that he heard the sound of barking one night and ventured down to the shore to see a more-than-sixty-foot snake slithering up the bank. The head alone was three feet long, he insists.

That night we search the area, hiking on land and motoring the tributaries in a wooden banana boat. Flashes of lightning help us to scan the surface of the otherwise murky water. Suddenly we see something slip into the river near the bank. We steer the boat over, and four of us jump into the water, clutching around in the shallows. In moments we manage to haul a fifteen-foot boa constrictor up onshore. It’s absolutely huge and so powerful that our combined effort can hardly subdue it. Still, it’s not a giant.

Shortly after, the sky pours down again, destroying two cameras while we scramble to get the rest of our gear back to the boat. I drop beneath the deck to get into something dry. By the time I return topside, the rain has relented. In the still night air, huge javelins of lighting drop down from above. Looking out over the railing of the boat at the flickering jungles, I’m reminded that some monsters are all too real. I’m relieved to be away from the snake-infested rain forest but mindful that tomorrow will bring an all-new adventure.

As I scan the blur that’s passing by the car windows, I can make out rows of scarred trees bled by rubber workers collecting their precious sap. The laborers who carry on this nearly 3,500-year-old tradition do so in small, isolated groups. Alone within these illimitable rain forests, these laborers have been telling tales of a creature called the Mapinguary for centuries.

I speak with various individuals throughout the afternoon as we trek from one remote location to another. The workers seem agitated when talking openly about the creature and nervously describe a hairy, black, bear-like animal that is both highly elusive and yet dangerously aggressive toward humans. Some claim it has only a single eye, others say it has a mouth on its stomach. Everyone agrees that it smells terrible.

By late afternoon we’ve pushed our way deep into the forests for a meeting with an indigenous tribe whose stories mirror those of the rubber tree workers. With hundreds of different clans and more than two hundred unique languages still whispered here, I’ve chosen my local translator carefully. These tribes are among some of the wildest left on earth. More than fifty of them have almost no interaction with the modern world. Just two years ago, a low-flying plane traveling near the border between Brazil and Peru was actually shot at with arrows by what may be one of the last completely uncontacted groups in the world. A few hazy photos taken from the aircraft show agitated villagers covered head to toe in rich red and black pigments, firing wooden bows skyward. And two years ago, members of the Kulina tribe reportedly killed and ate a local farmer in a ritualistic act of cannibalism.

We park the 4x4 and cross a simple footbridge into a village clearing where I’m half certain I’m going to be cooked in a stew. Baskets of animal skulls are hanging from the porches of various huts, and a group of hunters sharpen their arrows on the fringes of the encampment.

The inhabitants turn out to be more than amiable, though, eagerly greeting me with a wooden bowl of fire ants, which I’m obliged to consume. I do my best to hide the burning pain in my mouth and just keep smiling and chewing.

After the snack, I sit down with the villagers and hear their tales of the dreaded Mapinguary. Their descriptions of the creature sound suspiciously like that of a giant ground sloth, which did live alongside humans here about ten thousand years ago before going extinct. One of the competing theories about the Mapinguary is that the ground sloth has somehow survived in some isolated pocket of these jungles.

More interesting, however, is the belief that the Mapinguary is an ancestral memory—a recounting of actual run-ins between humans and giant sloths, passed down in an unbroken chain for thousands of years.

One of the most striking aspects of the stories is a common claim that the animal is able to mimic the human voice. When pressed to explain this, the workers say that if you yell out, the Mapinguary will return your call. In other words, the creature is an echo. A reverberation from the massive tangled skein of vegetation that is the Brazilian Amazon. Cut down too many trees or mistreat the sacred land, and you will incur the wrath of the Mapinguary, they say. To these people who live by the balance with nature, the animal is revealed as a sentinel. Like the yeti of the Himalayas, the fairies of Ireland, the Taotaomo’na of Guam, and other such cautionary creatures, he is an age-old guardian. A spokes-creature for environmentalism dreamed up millennia before the word even existed.

Suddenly I’m struck by the rain forest itself. From the center of this clearing where we’re sitting, it now appears to me as a mighty wall rising up around the circular periphery of the village like a battlement. My translator is communicating back and forth, trying to sort out the details of one elder’s experience, while I imagine what it must be like to live here after dark. Once the sun goes down, that ring of forest will spark to life, a cacophony of sounds emanating in stereo from the labyrinth beyond. And as I look at the many children huddled curiously behind our cameras, wide-eyed with fear at the mere mention of the Mapinguary, I can see that he is also part boogeyman. Just like the giant anaconda, he is a foreboding representative of the unforgiving power of the wilderness beyond the village, ready to envelop anyone who missteps. As the sun sets and shadows grow long, I begin to feel the power of these creatures for myself. The night is coming on fast, and I’m not sure if I’m chasing legends, memories, or dangerous animals. The many versions of the legends are beginning to coalesce and work on my nerves like a campfire ghost tale. And perhaps that’s the point of telling them—to put people on edge, which is about the safest place to be in the Amazon.

CASE FILE:
SUPER-SERPENTS

NAMES:
Giant anaconda, Sucuriju Gigante, Mongolian Death Worm, Rainbow Serpent, Hoop Snake, Nabau, Tatzelwurm, Lambton Worm, Yuxa, Nirivilo, Naga, Quetzalcoatl, Seps, Apep, Joint Snake.

DESCRIPTION:
These are, to put it succinctly, badass snakes. Snakes that some of the most prominent cultures in history have revered and feared. Many are described as stretching out in excess of one hundred feet, with surely proportionate sets of fangs. However, a few of these intestinal-looking monsters are actually known less for their length and more for both their aggression and their formidable defense mechanisms. For example, at only five feet long, the Mongolian Death Worm is said to kill by spewing acid or electrocuting its foes. And people say size matters.

Quetzalcoatl, a feathered serpent from Mesoamerican culture, is a card-carrying Aztec god. His domain includes reproduction, rain, lightning, thunder, and agriculture. Quite a to-do list. In Australia, the Rainbow Serpent is believed to control the flow of the earth’s water. Apep, an evil basilisk in Egyptian folklore, rules over darkness and chaos. And, of course, that infamous serpent in the Garden deceived poor Eve.

LOCATIONS:
The Amazon, Mongolia, Japan, Egypt, American West, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Trinidad, Paraguay, Argentina.

STATUS:
There’s something primal about our fear of snakes. Maybe it’s hardwired into our cultural DNA. Whatever the reason, I don’t see anything wrong with a little bit of ophidiophobia. Even Indiana Jones was afraid of them, and he was brave enough to appear in
The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

It should therefore come as no surprise that stories of large, terrifying, super-snakes easily gain traction. Case in point: just a few years ago, an Indonesian zoo reported capturing the largest snake in history. Shaky amateur video seemed to back up the shocking claim that this colossal reticulated python was nearly fifty feet long, and the story spread like wildfire on cable news.

Also, in February of 2009, two photos surfaced of an enormous snake cruising through the Baleh River in Borneo. A member of a team monitoring flood conditions from a helicopter supposedly snapped the images. When released, it sent Indonesian communities into a tizzy, as they immediately considered it a Nabau, the mythical serpent famous in local Iban legend.

VERDICT:
At the Indonesian zoo, the super-snake was reassessed, at which point the so-called largest ever documented came in at just a bit over twenty feet long. Impressive but nowhere near a world record.

The aerial images of the swimming snake in Borneo have also come under fire. It’s not a good sign that the photos were submitted anonymously and, even more troubling, that there were only two of them. If you saw a waterslide-sized snake from
the safety of a helicopter, wouldn’t you take a few more shots? Who snaps two photos and goes, “Yeah, that’s probably enough. I’m pretty sure I got it.” The glaring problem with the images, though, is the color of the water, which doesn’t match the river in Borneo. Using a reverse search engine, a Kansas librarian matched the picture to a waterway in the Congo, not the Baleh River, and discovered that the photo had been doctored. Case debunked.

If there’s one place in the world where a super-snake could exist, it’s the Amazon. Dozens of tribes believe they have seen the giant anaconda, and their stories are remarkably consistent. The lack of definitive proof of the creature can be somewhat forgiven, since the waters of the Amazon are the most impenetrable on the planet.