We have just left our second crocodile of the day and are rounding a bend on Monkey River when our local guide points up in a tree, “Boa!”, he exclaims. The fat snake is not hard to spot draped over a limb about fifteen feet up a tree on the riverbank. The head is hidden from view, but upon closer inspection, we see that there are not one, but two tails dangling. I chuckle at the thought of some strange, two-tailed, headless snake from one of the Doctors—Doolittle or Seuss. But the second tail does not belong to the snake, it belongs to an iguana, victim of the great constrictor. We have just missed the action and the body of the three to four-foot lizard has already disappeared, leaving only its slender tail. A more wary lizard might have seen the snake coming and dropped into the water to take its chances with the crocodiles, but this one was caught unaware.

We motor on. When we return less than an hour later, there is no sign of the boa. The crocodiles are still sunning, waiting for their chance.