I write to you once again from the Sheraton in Iguazú, this time to report on a conspiracy by the Argentinian government.
Two days ago the Wife and I and a third party — one of her co-workers — were walking down the well-worn tourist path to the waterfalls when we happened upon several strange-looking, presumably indigenous animals. I have never seen the likes of these creatures in the wild, in a zoo, or in pictures. Nor has our supposedly comprehensive "Discovery Channel" borne witness to the existence of these mammalian rascals, which appear to have the hindquarters of a raccoon, complete with ringed tail. They are burrowing animals, with clawed front feet to effect their swift digging of holes into which they bury a hard, black, scooped snout — not unlike a miniature snow shovel — apparently in search of insects and grubs to eat.
Of course, none of the three of us had a camera handy to capture these strange animals on film, but as we ventured further down the (primrose?) path to the base of the falls they appeared in such abundance that we took heart. At a snack bar near the falls trailhead they were constantly underfoot, at times even climbing onto occupied tabletops, hard after crumbs and uneaten food. The animals were not shy and they were everywhere: we could come back any day and take as many shots of them as we pleased. For my part, I had already encountered one earlier in the day, out on a walk by myself, so I had no doubt we would see some more of them.
Needless to say, we have not seen hide nor hair of this species in the two days since. And now that I think about it, I suspect some foul play. Every single one of these animals had a colored plastic radio tag clipped to its ear. Every one. The Wife and I assumed at first that park rangers had tagged the animals to track their movements, a common practice among naturalists, however inscrutable their investigative motives may appear to the rest of us. Now I'm convinced that the movements of these animals, far from being simply tracked, are in fact dicated by remote control via these tags, to taunt and menace tourists, advancing the animals in hordes to disrupt the tourists' outdoor snacking with wanton feeding attacks, then withdrawing them when the time is ripe for commemorative photos.
I can think of no better evidence of Argentine ill intentions than my earlier first encounter with an animal of this type. I was walking on my own when one of them wandered out of the treeline and began to prance a bit in front of two or three other tourists, to draw their attention away from an
untagged butterfly posing on the hotel's lawn. When one of the tourists dipped suddenly into a vantage crouch and fumbled a camera out of his pack, the creature, caught by surprise, hastily dug out a hole and plunged its head inside it, neck-deep. The man, treated now to the unremarkable backside of a raccoon, waited patiently, with his camera squared on the shot, for the animal to withdraw its snow-shovel head from the hole. He was still waiting ten minutes later, when I decided to get on with my life.
It is my conviction that agents of the Argentinian government have themselves dug out a bunker under the falls, where they sit with joysticks in hand manipulating these poor animals forward and backward, left and right, and if necessary sending encrypted
dig-to-hide signals to neural implants in the animals' skulls — all this to ensure that European and American tourists are denied their sovereign right to a complete photographic record of their travels. This misconduct cannot continue. I demand a resolution of censure from the U.N. Security Council, and possibly the imposition of appropriate economic sanctions.
