The Dragon

I came back to our room after writing my last post to find Nathan all worked up about something.  He barely gave me time to put my bag down before hauling me into the jungle in search of a 'dragon'.  Apparently he had heard a little scuffle on the steps outside of our stilt bungalow thirty minutes earlier.  He saw four cats piled one on top of the other on a huge boulder and wondered why they might be in such a panic.  Then, he claims, he saw the reason why.  An 8 foot lizard (dragon) had tried eating the kittens playing beneath the rock.  I was skeptical.  My skepticism resulted in mandatory jungle wandering in search of the creature.  The hotel must be doing some burning to clear the land for more bungalows, but Nathan assured me it was the dragon's fiery breath that scorched the land.  

The next day we took a snorkeling trip to another part of the island and saw several of these creatures.  We're not sure if they're Gila Monsters or Monitor Lizards, but they are indeed 8-9 feet long.  And the do indeed eat cats.  We had the good fortune of catching another much smaller lizard right outside of our bungalow as it dug through the dirt.  At first we thought it might be looking for a cool place to sleep, but shortly there after it grabbed a huge frog from an underground hiding place and swallowed it whole.  The swallowing process took about ten minutes because the frog was bigger than the neck of this thing.  It kept having to scrape its neck against the ground to help massage its meal down.  Impressive.
Our snorkeling trip was amazing.  We both got to see several sharks, a sting ray, and a lot of very beautiful fish and coral.  Despite our 50 spf sunblock, we were both torched on our back sides from floating face down all day.

Our choice of hotel (or rather..the hotel we were dropped off at without a choice) is in a great spot.  The service however...is atrocious.  Last night we waited an hour for our food..only to discover that somehow our order had been 'lost'.  It was taken again, and I am certain that we will be charged twice for it..since everything we order is added directly to our hotel bill.
Panuba Inn Resort..for those of you considering a trip.  A great place to read, snorkel and have peace and quiet.  But do not, under any circumstances..expect to be taken care of.  The staff would much rather be smoking a cigarette than doing something for you.

That said, we're having a great time.  We're both about to finish our second book since landing here, and will probably take another jungle walk today.  Although, our first jungle walk didn't work out so well for Nathan.  He tripped and fell into a pile of mystery leaves and bugs and then ten minutes later was jolted to a stop after a fern with teeth sunk its sharp little fangs into his forearm.  We're both still crossing our fingers it wasn't a poison fern..though I wouldn't be surprised.  Jungle walking is no joke.
Looks like we'll be spending my birthday in Singapore.
We'll be on a ferry back to the mainland at 0700 tomorrow and hopefully on a bus south by noon.