Plus Size Animals

Notice that big brown stain to the right of my left hand? That is all that's left of the biggest scorpion I've ever seen in my life outside of a Japanese monster movie. It's a shame I didn't stop and grab the camera while it was still alive but I wouldn't have had the nerve to put my hand next to it for perspective even if I had.

I often just fall into bed at nights. It's rare for me to flip the light on but I did and there it was. I picked my jaw up off the floor and ran downstairs for the mop. A sneaker wasn't big enough for this job. I've been shaking out my bed sheets ever since.

What baffles me is how the thing grew to be so big. We don't see that many scorpions in Huatulco in the first place. Men walk through the streets in the early evenings with big spray guns of insecticide. As far as I know, there's no atomic reactor in the neighborhood.

I saw this bigger than average tarantula while investigating some young girl's scream outside my classroom. We see tarantulas fairly often but some are definitely bigger than others. There's nothing in the picture for perspective but, trust me, it was bigger than my hand.


The most dramatic things happen when my camera is nowhere near. There were already lots of people in the water when I arrived early at Santa Cruz this morning. Before I got sorted out, they had all moved back to the sand. Near the shore, in the waist deep shallows, was a dorsal fin cruising the water. It was just like in the movies. This fish was as long as I am tall.

It was all good fun as long as no one was trapped in there with it. Oops. There were four oblivious people still out by the buoys. I shouted out to them to get out of the water, that there was a shark; in Spanish, I'm proud to say. They understood me and started heading back immediately. "Go to the rocks!" Also in Spanish. The rocks were much closer than the sand and they could avoid crossing its path.

That's when a man explained to me it was actually a swordfish, a small one as swordfish go in fact, that was just looking for food. Usually they stay out in the deep, like sharks. When I looked again, it was clearly not a shark fin. Sorry for the false alarm, folks. Better safe than a lifetime of regrets for slow reaction time. I rather doubt that swimming with swordfish is entirely safe anyhow. Eventually, it drifted along

No Storm

It's a sunny morning in Zipolite. I'm all packed up, ready to go. I really wouldn't mind staying another day but I'm determined to see if Lake Atitlan lives up to the hype. Zipolite is like that. You wake up to a perfect morning on the ocean and can't take seriously the idea of anything or any place else being important enough to warrant the effort.

I would have left last Thursday but there was a serious storm warning. A few locals warned me of an approaching hurricane. So much for travelling. I bought snacks and alcohol and prepared to settle in for a bit of a breeze. I was kind of looking forward to it; listening to the fierce howl against my shutters, sipping quietly from a bottle of mezcal. I didn't take it too seriously. The Brisa Marina is a solid construction.

I warned neighbors about it but they were skeptical. The woman next door to me found a hurricane website with live satellite feeds and, sure enough, there was a big cloud of white spinning around out there. I was like Chicken Little, checking on friends, spreading the news. But it didn't happen. The sky looked promising for a while. The waves were more than a little rough out there the next day but it's not as if wedon't see the occasional rough water days here.

But check out the pictures. It looked promising for a while.