Iguassu Falls, Argentina: Pursued Through The Jungle
By Julian Zabalbeascoa

The sign is colored a deep, earthy brown. A yellow trim borders it. In the middle: a white silhouette of a jaguar. Above the jaguar: a yellow box with a red exclamation point.

The sign pokes out of dense foliage like a clown from a jack in the box. As if it had once sprung on an unsuspecting traveler, scared the hell out of him, but was never pushed back down.

Only now, looking at it, do I recall some warnings about the jaguars. A story about how a child, walking with his parents, was snagged from the footpath by a jaguar and taken into the forest. The parents chased after the jaguar, fruitlessly following the cries of their child, until they eventually ceased.

Passing the sign, I also remember casually passing over a bit of advice in my guidebook: Don’t walk through the forest alone. And: Talk loudly with your companions. Jaguars, unless desperate and starved, avoid humans. Plural. I’m alone. Hundreds of visitors cross through the forest each day to reach the various lookout points of the Iguassu Falls. Unfortunately there are none in front of me. I turn around—none there either.

Usually such warnings and signs heeding caution don’t concern me, but I’m suddenly at unease. A primal protein of self-preservation hibernating in my DNA for millennia has jumped awake as if doused with water and rushes blood to my ears. My saliva tastes like thin metal. There is something much larger and fiercer than me in this dense forest. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there. I sense it. It’s watching me.

The footpath goes on for another hundred yards. There’s nearly an equal amount behind me. I think of running, but the jaguar will most likely give chase. And if it is all only in my head, then it doesn't matter how fast I run.

The Iguassu Falls are one of the largest waterfalls in the world—the force they produce is three times greater than Niagara’s. I am still some distance from the falls, but the sound of the crashing water surrounds the forest. It’s a deafening, droning, constant noise. Despite this, I hear the distinct sound of a large paw pushing into the earth and snapping branches. I stop, catching my breath. There is a quick rustle of bushes and then another heavy step.

I anticipate the forest opening like theater curtains; to have one final moment of clarity, to understand, to be able to say, “Ah, so this is it,” before the jaguar tackles me, presses its weight and teeth into my neck, and severs my jugular.

I keep walking, slowly, as if this is key, with the delusion of an ostrich with its head in the ground. The footsteps follow me. Branches, bark, and leaves crunch under its mass.

How long will it wait before it attacks?

The opening to the footpath is still seventy yards away. A bridge awaits me if I can reach it.  I assert confidently my groundless assumption that a jaguar would never pursue me across a bridge. But I’m still so far away.

From the corner of my eyes I look to my right, and through the slits of the trees I catch a glimpse of a large spotted shoulder before it disappears behind the dull, brownish-gray bark of one thin trunk blending into another.

The footsteps, massive and nearing, quicken.

So this is it.

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