Crocodile sighting

OK, I had to Google this. According to AI we have no Alligators in Honduras only Caimanes and Crocodiles. Caimanes are sweet water creatures so this one is probably a Crocodile. Why? Because I saw this one at El Estero yesterday, this is an arm of the sea that cuts through town for I guess close to a Kilometer.

Not really good pictures I was not very comfortable being so close, I showed him to a guy even older than I, and he just said, crap I come to sit down in that bench every day, i am stopping that from right now. The crocodile had remained as in the first pictures for several minutes but I guess our voices scared him and he swam away. It was about five feet long from head to tail, not that big, but still I would not want him close by on land.

You know, when I was about 10 or 11, it occurred to my Dad to bring home one of these guys as a pet. He named him Snoopy and he was tied up in the yard. I never actually liked him, and one day he just died, I have no way to know why. I guess he just did not like being tied up. Anyway that was my one and only experience with them, until some twenty odd years ago, when I was in a place called Isleta having a few beers and one of the guys said he had lagarto (probably caiman) at his home. So we went and I tried it, his wife had fried it and I remember white meat without much taste, she either was not a good cook or probably had never done this before.

And then at this Estero I saw one around a year ago, maybe it was the same one, it was smaller but it might have grown. Then I heard the municipality had caught two of them and taken them to a wildlife refuge. So I guess what happens is they catch two but there are probably ten more in the area, so you can always see one. I was thinking that if it came out of the water I would just cross the street and hope it didn't follow. I mean I have a trick knee so I can't run too fast. I guess I figured a car might frighten him back into the water. Luckily this guy swam towards the center of the Estero which is at most one hundred feet wide, I have no idea how deep it is.

i have seen some wild animals in this town which has about 250,000 inhabitants. for example I once saw a Harpy Eagle on a cell phone antenna. This one was even more curious than this alligator because their habitat is over three hundred kilometers from us. Luckily Jaguars and other big cats are closer, but they live high up in the mountains some eight kilometers away.