"I've never heard of anything like that in my entire life in the Dominican Republic. But who knows what comes out of the jungle."
I received the following account:
"We don't know what we saw. In the summer of 2014, we were in the Dominican Republic staying at a locally owned hotel. It was a nice hotel but nothing lux, and a very open-air sort of place.
We had gone out for dinner and enjoyed a bottle of wine but weren't drunk or anything. I'm reading in bed and my husband comes out from the bathroom completely white-faced in shock.
"Um, there's a spider in the bathroom."
I look at him and laugh. Spiders in the Dominican Republic are big, but nothing to freak over. He looked like he had seen Satan himself by his expression. So I go to the bathroom.
All I see are 4 thick, hairy, orange, and black legs coming out of the sink basin. They were at least 10 inches long and at least as thick as pencils. Very hairy, from about 5 feet away I could see the separate orange and black hairs. I'm short, so I couldn't see the whole thing over the sink from the distance I was at (there was a towel blocking direct view plus the sink basin), but just by the legs I saw I knew I was looking at almost a 2-foot-long spider.
I calmly walk back to my husband.
"Did you see it? DID YOU SEE IT?" I nod and we leave the room to get help from the front desk.
Our broken Spanish had the staffers in hysterical laughter not to mention what they took as overreacting to tourists scared of a little spider. One staffer, Jose, came to look and it was gone. Jose tells us he has at least 3 in his home which is when I realize that these people either don't believe me or don't understand what I'm saying. I've lived in tropical climates before. There's no way in hell you'd share a home with the spider we saw.
A day later we have a normal spider infestation. I go to the desk and ask for bug spray. The staffers are still having a laugh at our expense but the same guy Jose comes up with me with the spray. We are cleaning up the spiders (which are about 5 inches or so daddy long legs types) he is surprised that I'm suddenly not scared by these spiders. He asks why and I inform him that these spiders aren't what we saw the other night. And I used my hands to show him the size of what we saw.
His mouth dropped.
"I've never heard of anything like that in my entire life in the Dominican Republic. But who knows what comes out of the jungle."
It wasn't until a little while later that my husband while discussing Harry (our pet name for this spider), realized that I had only seen half of it. My estimate of a 10-inch leg + 10-inch leg for a total of about 20 inches - 2 feet was severely off. He saw the whole body, and the body, minus the legs, was as wide as the entire hand. A grown man's hand. So it likely was way bigger than 2 foot diameter. He also said there were multiple big black eyes.
I have since gone on numerous arachnid websites and have even contacted arachnologists to try to identify what we saw. Most came back suggesting a Mexican spider (I forget the name of it now) that might have somehow gotten to the Dominican Republic in someone's luggage. But that spider is NOT what we saw. What we saw was basically a spidersaurus Rex." K
*****
*****
.jpg)
PHANTOMS & MONSTERS VIDEO LIBRARY
-----
.jpg)
We also provide free graphic creation if needed. Thanks. Lon
.jpg)
