Jaguars Ripped My Flesh

294 Pages·2011·1.28 MB·English

by  Tim Cahill

Acclaim for Tim Cahill
“Tim Cahill is the working-class Paul Theroux.… He delights in finding
stories too peculiar to be labeled merely off-beat.”
— The New York Times
“Cahill writes in an agreeably off-the-wall fashion; he has a way with
anecdotes, and he can be quite funny.”
— Washington Post
“Cahill [has] the what-the-hell adventuresomeness of a T. E. Lawrence
and the humor of a P. J. O’ Rourke.”
— Condé Nast Traveler
“Tim Cahill is one of those rare types whose fun quotient seems to
increase in direct proportion to the diceyness of the situation.”
— San Francisco Examiner
“You might call him crazy. You might call him reckless. But you’ll
definitely call him hilarious. Adventure-travel crash-dummy Tim Cahill
is to travel writing what P. J. O’Rourke is to political commentary.”
— Hartford Courant
Books by Tim Cahill
Buried Dreams
Jaguars Ripped My Flesh
A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg
Road Fever
Pecked to Death by Ducks
Tim Cahill
Jaguars Ripped My Flesh
Tim Cahill is the author of five books. He lives in Montana and is
currently Outside magazine’s editor-at-large and a contributing editor to
Esquire and Rolling Stone.

FIRST VINTAGE DEPARTURES EDITION, APRIL 1996
Copyright © 1987 by Tim Cahill
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in
the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and
simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in
hardcover by Bantam Books, Inc., New York, in 1987.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cahill, Tim.
Jaguars ripped my flesh / Tim Cahill.
p. cm. — (Vintage departures)
eISBN: 978-0-30777839-0
1. Adventure stories, American.
2. Travelers’ writings, American. 3. Voyages and travels. I. Title.
PS3553.A365J3 1996
813′.54—dc20
95-46721
Author photograph © Marion Ettlinger
v3.1
To Richard J. and Elizabeth Cahill:
the first lucky thing that ever happened to me.
Acknowledgments
All stories originally appeared in Outside magazine except: “The Lost
World,” “Gorilla Tactics,” and “Eruption,” which appeared in GEO;
“Shark Dive,” which appeared in the Los Angeles Times Magazine; “Fear
of Falling,” which appeared in West; and “The Underwater Zombie,”
which appeared in Sport Diver.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Tracking Snipe
The Book on Survival
Pombe Wisdom
Getting Lost
Bad Advice
2. News of the World, Such As It Is
Going South
Strange Translations
The Lost World
The Underwater Zombie
Cahill Among the Ruins in Peru
Down Under and Thereabouts
The Reception at Bamaga
To the Place of Walleroo Dreaming
Coming Back from Gato Island
3. Animal Lore
Rime of the Ancient Porcupine
Life and Love in Gorilla Country
The Clown Owl’s Bitter Legacy
The Shame of Escobilla
4. The Home Front (See the USA …)
In the Wind
Ill Wind at Poison Creek
The First Fear Fandango
Balloon Drop
Fear of Falling
Into the Eyewall
Over My Head
No Laughs in Satan’s Silt Hole
Caving in Kentucky
Shark Dive
Kayaking Among the Ice Children
Manifest Destiny
The New Desert, an Old Woman
World-Class Attractions
Fire and Brimstone on the Volcano Watch
Eruption
The Killing Season
A Camp at the End of Time