Flying to the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

a lot about camping. He had been a Boy Scout (I had not) and he loved to hike to remote fishing spots, in hopes of catching big trout from places no one else had been. Bill was also a finicky eater, which was nice too, as I will explain later. Our first job was to hike a couple of miles through the jungle to our assigned camping area. On the way I was really surprised—the jungle seemed empty. Where were all the hedgehogs, porcupines, pangolins, mice, and wild pigs we had heard about? Was it possible
for a jungle to be empty? Not even a bird chirped. Maybe we were making such a tremendous noise as we crashed through the underbrush that even the oldest, slowest hedgehog was able to keep far ahead of us. In any case, what were we going to eat? Bill said he wasn’t hungry, but I sure was, and as night fell and the mosquitoes came out, I lay in my hammock and listened to my stomach gurgle, and felt sorry for myself. I was supposed to be on my way to the moon, instead of fooling around in the middle of an empty jungle.
    The next morning I tried to catch some fish that I could see in a nearby stream. They were just minnows, but they looked edible, and I would have loved to eat thirty or forty of them for breakfast. But no such luck, and I wasted a couple of hours before I gave up, hungrier than ever. Bill and I decided that if we couldn’t catch any animals to eat, we should try for an edible plant of some sort. Palm trees were the only things around that we knew for sure were O.K. to eat, because our instructors had told us so. The part that you ate was called the heart, and it was a pale green crunchy stalk somewhat larger than a celery stalk. The only problem was that the heart of palm was inside the tree, and first you had to chop down the tree and cut it open. Furthermore, some varieties of palm tree had edible hearts and some didn’t. Unless you were a real expert, the only way to find out which was which was to chop one down and see for yourself. With just a small dull machete apiece, that would be a lot of work. Bill and I talked it over and decided it was our only chance for food, so we picked a likely-looking tree and started chopping. After what seemed like hours, it finally toppled to the ground. As soon
as it did, ants began to pour out of it, and we could see that it was not a healthy tree inside, although it looked fine outside. The heart was discolored and looked rotten. The ants were everywhere, angrily running around looking for an enemy—us! We retreated, disgusted with our bad luck (or lack of skill in tree selection), and discussed what to do next. We finally decided that if we wanted to eat we had no choice but to try another palm tree. We picked a second one with great care and started hacking away. This time we hit the jackpot. When it finally fell, we could tell right away that the heart looked good, with not a single ant in sight. We cut out a piece of the tender heart, which was nearly two feet long and about five inches in diameter. Now we had enough salad to last for days. Of course, we didn’t have any dressing to put on the heart of palm, but we just munched it plain and raw, like chewing dry, tough celery. It wasn’t bad, with a flavor that reminded me a little bit of nuts, lettuce, and artichokes—all mixed together.
    That evening our instructors took pity on us and gave us something else to eat: chunks of iguana. An iguana is a large lizard, and looks fearsome, very much like a miniature dragon. Actually, it is a shy, harmless creature. If I had not been so hungry, I might have felt badly about eating one, but instead I was delighted to half fill a large tin can with water from the stream and throw in the iguana cut into pieces the size of a small fist. We built a roaring fire and propped the can up over the coals. Pretty soon our makeshift pot was bubbling away, and the smell coming from it was actually delicious. It didn’t smell like an ugly old lizard at all.