When traveling to the Caribbean, you see so many beautiful views. There are beautiful white sand beaches, gorgeous fish to discover, majestic palm trees and amazing wildlife.

And iguanas.

In 2008, I went to St. Thomas with my best friend Denise. The first night we were there, we saw this huge, gorgeous iguana. We — and other tourists — stopped and took photos of this amazing creature, So beautiful. So unique. So unlike what we see at home.

We quickly learned that there were iguanas everywhere. And with iguanas comes iguana poop.

Luckily, it didn’t smell bad, but it was everywhere. Lying by the pool, the iguanas would come up to you looking for food. There were signs that said please don’t feed them, and we didn’t. But they wouldn’t go away.

“Shoo! Shoo! Go away, you weird beast!”

Now, before you get all mad at me, I realize the iguanas were there first and I would never hurt them or make them do anything to make them uncomfortable. I’m sure we have encroached on their habitat and we are the interlopers. But they are annoying.

Our hotel pool had a hot tub connected to it, and because we traveled in the off-season, it was pretty empty. I’m not a person who lies in the sun a lot, so I hung out in the shade in the hot tub, reading “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” Because I was the only one in the hot tub, I had control of the temperature, which is important in the hot-ass Caribbean.

There were always several iguanas coming around the hot tub, which was built-in, so they were on the deck at the edge of the tub. Of course, one of them pooped. Great. And I was planning to hang out and ignore it. Until he moved, and his giant tail knocked the poop right into the hot tub.

Go away, you nasty dragon-squirrel!

I got out of the hot tub for the last time.

We also got to experience the joy of finding a snake in the pool.

We alerted the resort people who fetched it out and informed us that there are no venomous snakes on St. Thomas. Thank goodness.

Of course, our trip to St. Thomas was amazing and there are many more stories to tell. But the iguanas were a minor annoyance that we learned to accept.

On our last day, we saw newly arrived tourists taking pictures of the iguanas on the beach, so excited. “Oh my goodness! An iguana!”

Suckers.

 

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