Iguanas in the Sand

One thing I’ve discovered after six years of time spent in La Manzanilla is that it is never going to be the same experience two years (and often two days) in a row.  One year the beach was covered by thousands of crystalline mounds of jellyfish that looked like snow globes that had wound up in the wrong climate.  Another year, the beach was covered with coral, yet another with stones.  One year we couldn’t swim because of a red tide and another due to all the sea lice (miniscule jellyfish larvae) in the water.  Last year, three different mantas and a large sea turtle beached themselves,  I found a blue-footed booby washed up on the sand and helped to set out hundreds of tiny sea turtles to make their way out into the ocean.  There was also a month of feeding frenzy as hundreds of pelicans, gulls and other sea birds dived like kamikazes into the ocean around me and this ritual was repeated day after day.

This year, for the first month I was here, there were practically no birds–a signal as sure as the vanishing of fish tacos at Pedro’s that the fish had moved elsewhere due to those same warm waters that had caused Hurricane Patricia.  In this fifth week of my stay, the fish have come back, although not in the numbers of former years.

But as in other years, there have been a number of rewards that compensated for days I couldn’t (wouldn’t) go into the ocean due to the opening of the lagoon and its drainage into the ocean. The resultant dirty water and odor caused me to walk farther up the beach than I have recently and those journeys led to the three different adventures involving iguanas that are pictured below:

(Click on first picture to enlarge photos and then click on each arrow to advance to the next photo.)

I first came upon this (sadly) dead iguana partially buried in the sand.

It was so beautiful that I couldn’t stop taking pictures of it.

Each part of it’s luxuriously colored body was so vivid.

I loved the golden “comb” on its back

as well as the graceful position it had been arranged in by the tide.

Although I’d seen iguanas in Puerto Vallarta, I’ve never seen them here in La Manzanilla.

And I don’t remember them being this beautifully colored.

As I drew nearer, I discovered that it was a very large piece of driftwood that someone had added split dried palm branches to to form the “comb.”

Today I was fortunate enough to meet the man who created the iguana sculpture.  His name is Mario Gugnon, a retired hospital maintenance coordinator from Quebec.  He says he found the large driftwood piece several years ago and to him it looked like an iguana with it’s left hind foot caught in a trap.  He added the palm fronds and has been doing so each year since.  In between Mario’s visits, the manager of the campground puts it away in safe keeping.  When I asked if he worked in other media he said no, he was not an artist.  He just likes decorating things.  In illustration, he pointed out their tastefully appointed and comfortable little terraza under the canopy.  But that is the subject for a different posting. (Update: I’ve now made that post as well. You can read it HERE.)

La Manzanilla is the perfect town and beach for someone who dreads repetition. It has been a new adventure every day this trip and I can’t type, edit and post fast enough to keep up with the stories.  Another day, another saga.  Thanks for joining me as I try to take it all in.

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Sea lice – stay safe at the beach!