A few weeks ago, I was down the mountain shopping at one of my favorite amazon returns stores when something caught my attention. I had just left the store and noticed what appeared to be a fake iguana clinging to the side of a patio chair right outside the door. I got closer to see if it was real and its eyeball moved!
I stepped back inside the store and asked about it, jokingly asking the lady if it was for sale. She told me that it had been there for multiple days. They had even tried to take it to a nearby tree, but it had returned the next day. I asked if there were eggs nearby, but she said they hadn't seen any. She motioned that I could take it if I wanted to.
It appeared to be pretty young as its color was bright green, it had no apparent scars, and all of its fingers and nails were intact!
I knew that my husband had mentioned before that he wanted iguanas running wild around our neighborhood, so I figured I could see if I could take the iguana (how hard could it be) and release it at our place.
As I walked out the door, there was a man standing there asking me for money so he could "get home." I told him he could have a dollar if he'd help me catch the iguana. Next thing I knew, he was pulling it off of the chair and holding it out to me!!
I asked him if we could put it in a box and we walked to the next store over ($.99 - no pague mas (don't pay more - but it's always more)) to see if they had a box. They emptied out a small box and the guy then asked for tape. The lady was holding some and gave him a small piece. He then taped the iguana's hands together!!
I'm sitting there thinking, "How on earth am I going to get the tape off of its hands when I get home?"
He asks for more tape and tapes its legs together! Then we stick it in the box and we can feel it squirming around. He asks for more tape to close it and I say that the kids can hold it on the way home and that seems to be okay, because the lady at the store is never going to give me more tape I can tell! Ha!
We go to the car and he gives me the box and I had already given him a dollar. At that point, he shows me how the iguana had scratched his arm. Yikes!
I pull away and immediately start second guessing myself. I call my husband who is in Panama City (8 hours away) and he says to just take it home and we'll see. I then start thinking they like warmer weather, so I look it up online.
Sure enough they like 80-90 degree temperatures and we live where the max is usually in the 70s. I call my husband again and he says maybe it will just make it "slower and easier to catch," but that it was my decision if I wanted to take it home and deal with it or not. He apparently missed a turn at this point and was done talking. Oops!
So I text my Panamanian friend to see what she thinks. She says they're more of a pest than anything good. They will eat the fruit we have growing. They like warmer temperatures and might die with it being that cold. She says I could leave it down the mountain or bring it up because our pastor likes to eat iguana! Ha! The kids did not like that suggestion!!
After a few minutes of sitting on the side of the road thinking, we decided to pull onto a side street and release the iguana. It was far enough away from the store that it wouldn't get back, but there was a wooded area where it could run off and hide. Now the only problem was the tape...
As I got the box from my daughter, we had the plan to open it and try to get the tape off before it ran away. I accidentally dropped the box, and when I picked it up, the iguana had already undone the tape and escaped the box! It ran away super fast! Wahoo, problem solved!
I was glad to be able to help rehome the poor guy. No telling what would have happened to him had he kept hanging out at the store! Everyone I told the story to thought it was pretty funny. I can't believe we almost took it home with us!
...ah, life in Panama is always an adventure...
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