Lol, Sheilah!
This part is probably the most accurate description of any environment we've ever given, and the most genuine incident that Linda and I ever wrote. We lived in Panama for four years, and this is a description of the Panamanian jungle as we experienced it. The incident with the wasps actually happened to my brother and to Linda, herself, and she wrote this part. They were coming back from a camping trip on a small hill in Panama that was called San Juan Hill (not the one in the various history books). My brother kicked the "small, papery object". The wasps came after them exactly as Linda described, and they tried to get away from them by jumping in the stream, but it didn't discourage the wasps. They ran for their lives, and eventually the wasps gave up the chase. Linda and Al (and our dad) arrived home about an hour later, still picking wasps out of their hair and clothing, and looking like poodles with the chicken pox. (lol!) We figured that for an incident in the tropical rain forest, we couldn't do better than something that really happened to one of us.
The spiders were exactly as she described them, too. They were all over the place, including in our yard, and none of us ever got bitten by them. I was reliably informed by others who were, that the bite stung, and itched, and raised a terrific welt, but it didn't kill anyone. We figured that Panama is close enough to Brazil that the flora and fauna were pretty likely to be the same.
Nan
POST!! POST!! POST!!
