Essays by Joshua Morrison

Crocodiles of La Manzanilla


One of the days when my aunt and uncle were visiting with us we went to La Manzanilla to see the crocodiles. We got to the first place where you could see the crocodiles and we got out of the car that Larry’s (my uncle) brother drove us around in. We walked up to where you could see the crocodiles. I noticed that at some places there was no fence and you were just on a raised surface. Everybody was a little freaked, besides my parents, they had been there before. It was definitely a first for me in the respect that I had never been so close to crocodiles that big. I wanted to get some food for them from a place that sells fish for that very reason but mom said later.

We then went over to the north end of the pond where you could see the crocodiles. Even though they were farther away than the (sort of) fenced place there was nothing stopping them from walking right out to the heavily populated beach. It was a huge risk and we all thought “Never see anything like that in the States”. We sat down at a palapa restaurant and had refreshments. Since I was so psyched to feed the crocs we went got some whole fish (when my parents were here last there was only parts of the fish). The crocs weren’t really excited for fish at all but it was still cool seeing them lazily eat the fish. When we ran out of fish we got in the car and went back to the hotel.

It was a dark and stormy night
It was another beautiful day in the Barra de Navidad/Melaque area. The weather had been perfect, not too hot, not too cold with a nice afternoon breeze. It was great weather for my aunt and uncle visiting from New Mexico. We spent the day exploring Melaque and La Manzanilla. It was fun to feed the crocodiles and watch them lazily try and find the fish. We stayed that night with my aunt and uncle at their hotel instead of going back to the boat. The next day it was raining and that is quite unusual for that area. The next morning we bid my aunt and uncle goodbye, and headed over to the Barra lagoon. We took a panga in to the mother boat to find that she was wet because we had left some hatches open. Also to my mother’s horror we picked up a mouse somehow. That afternoon was filled with mopping up the boat and more rain.

Later that evening we were watching Mission Impossible III (good movie) and we started hearing thunder and seeing the outside get a lot brighter. We went outside and gazed in amazement at the incredible display of thunder and lightning. I felt sorry for the people in Tenacatita, a couple miles north of Barra, it looked like they were getting some of the lightning right above them. We eventually went in to finish our movie and I went off to bed. I didn’t go to sleep because I was a little freaked when it started raining and blowing so much it made the boat heel. I got out of bed to see that my parents were already securing items and my dad started the engine. My dad steered the boat so it stayed pointed into the wind to avoid the wind catching our side and using it as a sail to make us heel. My mom and I looked for any boats that might be dragging. I stood up in the back of the boat when it started to die down and commented that I should go get my shampoo and take a shower. After the ordeal I thought, ”it’s my mom’s fault for the wind” because she said earlier that “We’re in a calm anchorage” while she held up glass wine glasses. When we started heeling, they were on the side of the counter and just slid off the counter onto the floor, SMASH! PIECES!! . I blamed my dad for the rain because he ordered some drinking water from the store so Mother Nature said “OH!!! I’ll give YOU water!!” and that’s how we got rain.