Anacondas 2

Tonight Melissa and I settled in for the evening flick, a bootleg copy of Anacondas 2. Some of you may remember the first Anaconda in 1997 featuring Ice Cube, J.Lo, and Owen Wilson. This second masterpiece was directed by Dwight Little, who may be more renowned for his work on Halloween 4 and Free Willy 2. Hard to say.

Basically what happens is a group of very attractive and ethnically diverse group of scientists are hunting for the blood red orchid in the jungles of Borneo. The orchid blooms for a week every seven years and the sweaty sexy young searchers, sent out by a pharmaceutical company, must find the flowers in order to unlock the secrets of youth and immortality.

What they soon discover, as per the back of the bootleg DVD box is that:

The orchid is already being used by a denizen host of giant snakes to augment their strength, size, and vitality - not to mention their appetites.

No kidding! The size of the movie anacondas was horrifying. They were as long as the river was wide and with girths bigger than the biggest trucker-style beer bellies you can imagine. Huge.After awhile the silliness of the plot allowed me to loosen up, stop watching the snake scenes through a web of fingers, and begin to wonder if anacondas really grow that large, with or without the help of orchids.

Coco said sure, anacondas eat cows so it's possible. Melissa said she didn't believe it and I said that it looks like I have some research to do.

Results: Anacondas in tropical Central and South America have been sighted in the 30+ foot range for length, they can get as fat around as a grown man, and they are known to eat deer, pig, caiman (kind of a small crocodile) and fish.

SO KEEP OUT OF THE RIVERS, PEOPLE.

I'm not a big fan of jungles. I'm first and foremost a fan of the coast and the mountains but all this hoo-ha about man-swallowing snakes has dredged up a memory from my brief journey into the outermost region of the Ecuadorian jungle.

If anyone has the photo of me running down the jungle path in my large, white grandma-style underpants after stepping in a spider nest and finding my legs covered black from toe to thigh by spiders please feel free to send it to me and I'll post it. I'm talking to you, Sara. After screaming at me, "Take off your pants, take them off!" and I tore my jeans off and started running, you took photos. I love my friends.