The Attack of the Killer Rhododendrons (17 page)

Well after midnight, I was caught off guard by the large number of very small children along the parade route. They were outnumbered by adults twenty to one, but some of those weaving in and out of the crowd were as young as three and four. If anyone at Carnaval had skin whiter or hair greyer than mine, they weren’t making themselves obvious. The mass of jet-black hair and skin the colour of old oiled mahogany that swept past me and around me and through me was joyous. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to grind my life away at Carnaval. However, there were bullfrogs to be chased.

F
OR THE DAY’S EFFORTS,
Gabriel deserves some level of canonization. We were en route to the site where bullfrogs were first noticed in the wild, having escaped from a commercial captive frog-breeding facility. As we passed through and out of Montevideo, Gabriel pointed out important landmarks and filled me in on recent Uruguayan political history. In many parts of the world, changes in the political party elected to govern result in only minor changes in the day-to-day lives of its citizens. This may be why so few citizens exercise their right to vote. It is not the case in Uruguay, where lives change in profound ways after each election, and almost everyone
in the country would vote even if they weren’t required to do so by law.

Gabriel was quick to point out that while Uruguayans are politically engaged, they are not particularly nationalistic. The country does not maintain a large military force, and its efforts are directed mainly at peacekeeping and disaster relief. When a military plane roared overhead, Gabriel suggested that it was probably en route to, or just returned from, Haiti, where personnel had been assisting in earthquake relief.

In some parts of the world, ranches and farms are enormous affairs. In the region east of Montevideo, agricultural holdings are much smaller. The spot we were aiming for was the site of one of the first bullfrog production facilities in Uruguay. When it became clear that no profit was to be had from bullfrogs, the site had been turned over to the production of poultry, and there was now talk about getting rid of the chickens and planting tomatoes instead.

We travelled down a series of roads with diminishing width and gravel depth. We arrived at our destination and pulled into a yard, drove down a packed-earth path, and were greeted by a man of considerable years, all of them spent in the sun. There were four others in the yard: a middle-aged man who had dissected a chain-saw into more pieces than I would have imagined; a woman washing clothes in a large pail; a teenager in a Liverpool Football Club jersey; and a shy young boy. We exchanged a happy
“¡Hola!”
and a wave with each of them.

The man in charge told us to expect to see lots of frogs, because the people living at the site heard them croaking every night. He gave us his impersonation. Aside, Gabriel told me that he was dubious, suspecting that they were hearing the calls of two species of native frog. Amorous bullfrogs should sound something like a bellowing cow. Or perhaps a bull.

From the back of his truck, Gabriel dragged out his favourite frog-catching apparatus. It was an aluminum ring a little over a metre in diameter with a loosely strung small mesh net in the centre. A heavy rope allowed the net to be dragged through the water.

It was likely to catch tadpoles, but it might snag an adult or two as well.

We arrived at a promising small lake about forty metres across and covered with a thick mat of duckweed and other floating vegetation. To my eyes it looked like frog nirvana. In turns, Gabriel and I got very wet and more than a bit mucky by lowering, tossing, or otherwise convincing the net to go into the water while the person at the other side of the pond tugged on the rope. After each dredge, we tossed aquatic vegetation aside and looked for tadpoles. None looked back at us. Instead, we got hundreds of tiny silvery fish. After several fruitless attempts, we marched around the margin of the lake, hoping that if an adult bullfrog was resting at the perimeter, it would jump in and make a big splash. We saw no splash. We moved downhill to a deeply flooded field to try our luck there. Gabriel and I dragged a long linear net between us and were rewarded with hundreds of small sparkly fish, but no bullfrogs.

We marched on to another spot, this time a very large circular pond, but after throwing and dragging the big circular net all we retrieved were more fish. Gabriel was clearly disappointed that he had been unable to produce bullfrogs. Instead he showed me the building once used to try to raise frogs for fun and profit. It was constructed of concrete and cinder blocks to a height of about a metre, with a wood and fabric shack above it. It was now used to house chickens. New stock had just arrived, and the operators were keen that they remain undisturbed while settling in. Ever a devil, I slowly peeled back a flap of material and was met by the stares of hundreds of surprised chickens. Not startled, just surprised.

Gabriel explained that when this bullfrog farm had been in operation, to maintain cleanliness in the enclosure, stale water had been periodically pumped out and fresh water pumped in. In doing so, the facility had probably released chytridiomycosis into the environment. This disease, caused by a microscopic fungus-like creature, has been implicated in worldwide declines in amphibian populations, and it could not possibly help the situation for Uruguay’s native frogs.

Gabriel had examined a number of sites where bullfrogs had been raised and then abandoned. In his experience, the habitat around the abandoned farm now had either large numbers of frogs or none at all. He hadn’t found any sites with an intermediate number. Perhaps after release and escape, small populations either died out or increased very rapidly to the habitat’s carrying capacity.

As we were pulling away from the site, Gabriel spotted an elderly couple at the side of the road, waiting for a ride into the nearby community of Pando. Gabriel offered them a lift, and they piled in the backseat. On hearing that we were looking for bullfrogs, they explained that when they had moved to the site six years earlier they had been kept awake each night by the bellowing of amorous bullfrogs. Now they heard none and took it as evidence that the introduced pests no longer inhabited the site.

On the drive back to Montevideo, I took the opportunity to spy on the world outside the window. Scooters and small motorcycles that no one would be caught dead on in North America are popular in Uruguay, and drivers seem to have no reservations about speaking on cellphones while piloting them. Those conversations are unencumbered by safety helmets. The country is one of contrasts, and seemed to have its feet in two very different eras. For instance, it was the government’s stated position that every child should have a computer, but we had passed villages where a new roof on the family’s shack would presumably be a better way to go.

G
ABRIEL CONTINUED ON HIS PATH
to sainthood by offering to take me to Punta del Este with his family the next morning. It is one thing to welcome a colleague and facilitate his work with a bit of translation, but it is quite another to take that colleague along on a family holiday. How could I possibly say no to an offer like that?

Their seven-year-old daughter, Sofía, was attending a school where English was the language of instruction, and her grasp was already exceptional. Their son, Nicolás, was a couple of years younger and had an incomplete mastery of his second language.

On the road east out of Montevideo, Gabriel drove and I rode
shotgun. When I wasn’t making myself popular by folding origami cranes for Sofía and Nicolás, Gabriel and I talked about ecology in general and conservation in particular. He pointed out sand dune sites that were threatened by beachfront development and spots where uncontrolled fires had destroyed substantial woodlots. We joked about the bumps that pass for mountains in Uruguay, and about a type of pointy-nosed frog known as Sapito de Darwin because Charles Darwin had first described it. If I have the story right (Adriana was translating bits and pieces of our conversation from the back seat), Darwin’s frog is one of the lick-a-frog-to-get-stoned species. We also talked about Darwin’s time in Uruguay. The great naturalist toured the region in and around Uruguay between May and November of 1833. Writing about an excursion near Punta del Este, Darwin wrote, “My companions were well armed with pistols and sabres; a precaution which I thought rather unnecessary; but the first piece of news we heard was, that, the day before, a traveller from Monte Video had been found dead on the road with his throat cut. This happened close to a cross, the record of a former murder.”

As we approached Punta del Este, we found the region to be a little tamer than Darwin had. We parked at a spot with a grand view of the ocean. It is an enormously popular spot in spring, when southern right whales pass in significant numbers. Looking down at the villas on the hillside, I got the impression that enormous bags of cash would be needed to live there. And perhaps that is what drives Punta del Este ever onward. The seaside is lined with one monstrous high-rise block after another, filled with people who had stopped for a short visit and realized that they and their cash wanted to live nowhere else.

Adriana and Nicolás stopped off at Adriana’s father’s home while Gabriel, Sofía, and I set off for a walk along the waterfront. We stopped for a snack of seafood and beer. When Sofía asked if I was going to eat any fish, I explained that I don’t eat meat. She seemed confused, and so Gabriel stepped in and said, “He’s like ET.” It had been a while since I had been compared to an alien life
form, but I certainly wasn’t insulted. Since I had no food in my stomach, the beer made me really loopy, and shortly afterward I tried to make friends with a male sea lion that had hauled himself onto the seawall, probably after losing one too many fights over access to females.

After a delightful lunch with Adriana’s father, I set off with the family for Brava Beach, although no one on the beach that day seemed brave enough to go out beyond the crashing breakers in about a metre of water. Even so, the splishing and splashing were great fun. The children played with fist-sized jellyfishes, which I can only assume were of the less toxic variety. The beach was very busy despite the cloudy conditions, and I cannot imagine what it would be like on a sunny day. Punta del Este is one of the most glamorous resorts in South America and the most expensive spot in Uruguay. On this day, some of the bodies were less than absolutely beautiful, being a bit beyond their best-before date. Even so, the party life in the community of 7,500 residents was apparently great. The nightlife didn’t get started until 1 a.m., and some of the nightclubs served breakfast.

When I took Spanish lessons, I was told not to be surprised by get-to-know-you questions like “How old are you?” or “What is your birthday?” As we sat on the beach, Sofía had a much better question, and one that I had never been asked before.

“Do you like your name?”

“Yes, I do. It means ‘valley.’ I think it is
cañada
in Spanish. Do you like your name?”

“Yes, but I prefer ‘Amelia.’“ For the rest of the day, I called her Amelia.

I
USED THE COMPUTER
in the hotel lobby to search for service times for the Catedral Metropolitana Iglesia Matriz–Montevideo. I found plenty of websites with photographs of the cathedral, and a few describing the building’s history, but they were all strangely silent about the times of Sunday masses. I stumbled across a website that offered the times of services of virtually every Catholic church you
might have the chance to visit, including those in Vanuatu and on Henderson Island, but it steadfastly refused to tell me about Montevideo. Even if it had, the website had last been updated in 1993, so some changes might have been expected. At eleven o’clock, based on my best guess, I took a leisurely stroll after breakfast along the
rambla
toward the church. I was hoping for a cooling breeze from the sea, but the wind was blowing from the town. I felt it was bringing me the pheromones of sleeping citizens.

The church was warm; air conditioning and electric fans have yet to find this corner of the Christian world. Some ladies had brought small decorated paper fans, and other visitors—me included—tried to be discreet in waving any odd bit of paper. The remainder just put up with the heat.

I was surprised that in a city of over a million people, in a country that is on some level Catholic, fewer than 100 people showed up for the service. Perhaps an incredibly popular minister had said mass the night before. Maybe the church is filled for services throughout the year except during Carnaval. Perhaps the Uruguayan soccer team was playing a long-time rival in the South American Cup final and the game had gone to overtime at 11 a.m. Of those in attendance, I appeared to be the eighth youngest, and that included a family of four and the priest.

I couldn’t identify the reading but think that I got the essence of the sermon. Commitment, said the priest, has a big role to play in salvation (
salvación
). Day and night, year after year, we need to be committed (
comprometido
) to our faith. But (
pero
)
,
the world is full of things that might divert our attention. Even if those diversions don’t lead to hedonism (
hedonismo
) or Satan worship (
adoración de Satanás
)
,
they can take us away from the commitment necessary to show our love of Christ (
Cristo
)
.
I think that the sermon was a thinly veiled jab at Carnaval-goers and vegetarians.

B
USES DEPART FROM MONTEVIDEO
for Punta del Este several times an hour, but if your destination is Punta del Diablo, the choices are more limited. A bus left at 1:00 a.m. without me. The bus leaving
at 1:30 p.m. wouldn’t give me much of the day to enjoy the seaside. And so, less than four hours after watching the New Orleans Saints win Super Bowl XLIV, I was up again and in a cab to the central bus station.

Even at six in the morning, the terminal was swarming with bodies arriving and departing, but my smattering of Spanish was sufficient to get me on the correct coach. I have come to expect strange happenings on bus rides in exotic foreign lands. On this journey, there were really only three things notable: (1) Although they were not frequent, I did spot long and stately windbreaks, consisting of white-barked eucalyptus trees, originally imported from Australia. They were very tall and clearly not harvested in Uruguay; (2) I spotted rheas. At first I thought my dozy eyes must be deceiving me. Like an idiot, I looked around the bus excitedly to see if anyone else had spotted the giant flightless birds. But in a bus full of Uruguayans, if anyone had noticed, no one would have cared; and (3) At a police detachment next to the highway, near a river crossing, traffic was stopped, and an officer came on board to give us all a good look. I smiled politely as he passed, but he ignored me completely, walked to the end of the bus, turned and walked back, and sent the bus on its way. I got no clue as to what it was all about.