Iguana for Sale

Earlier this week, I was sitting on the front porch eating a juicy slice of watermelon when a woman walks up to the gate, pulls a three-foot iguana out of her backpack, and tries to sell it for the equivalent of $2.00.

Iguanas are often used as human food here (meat, soup), but it's illegal because they are an endangered species...Thus the reason for carrying it in the backpack.

Beatriz paid for it so she could set it free, but it was pretty shaken up (I suppose I would be too had my limbs been tied together and I was shoved into a backpack and lugged around in 100-degree weather), so now it's being pampered here at the house, a new pet alongside the two dogs and thirty-some turtles here...add this to the list of things that won't happen to you in Iowa.