An encounter to remember

When my charming but persistent editor asked me to write something about travel, I had to admit I hadn’t traveled for four years. My last travel adventure led me to Mazatlán, where I’ve been stuck ever since. Given that my 3,200-mile journey from northern Idaho to the west coast of Mexico is the freshest in my mind, I’ll recount one of the high points.

My 17-year-old son and I left Idaho’s gradually thawing mountains with visions of white sand beaches and swaying palms shimmering on the distant horizon. We were just outside of Hermosillo when we had our first in-depth cultural experience.

As I pulled into a Pemex station to fuel up both the truck and the cooler, an older, disheveled man came up to me and started jabbering in Spanish while pointing to my travel trailer. As I followed this weathered desert rat to the rear of the trailer, he explained that there were noises indicating bad brakes. Then he began pointing to the remains of an old Datson truck at the edge of the lot. First I thought he was offering to trade the dented import for my wounded trailer. He kept repeating the word mecanico, and suddenly his meaning became crystal clear: he wanted to repair the brakes. This revelation was both strangely reassuring and somewhat frightening. 

Once it was clear his diagnosis was correct, I had several logistical choices for getting parts, none of which I particularly cared for. As I handed over $1,000 pesos and watched Ramón disappear in a cloud of smoke and dust, I realized my son was in complete shock. After two hours had gone by, he began listing all the reasons why Ramón would never come back, the obvious being he’d just been given more money than his truck, tools and sign were worth. About then I spotted his dusty truck clattering down the road toward our crippled RV. 

While watching Ramón install the new bearings and brakes, I became aware of a commotion behind me. I turned to see one of the Pemex attendants lay a 3-foot Diamondback Rattlesnake on the flatbed of Ramón’s truck. The head of the snake looked to be slightly flattened but it was still writhing. 

It seems the Pemex attendant was out back relieving himself when this thing coiled and struck at him. Being of quick reflexes, the man kicked the snake in mid-strike and then stomped on it several times. It was this dazed and stomped-on snake I was watching trying to regain consciousness. 

Our escalating ethnic encounters had induced a stunned culture shock in my son, but the squirming viper pretty much rendered him speechless. His eyes were the size of 10-peso pieces and his jaw had visibly dropped; I knew today’s adventure would be a memorable first day in Mexico for him.

Since I know that rattlesnakes can take massive punishment and still be dangerous, and also because I didn’t want it to suffer, I pulled out my folding knife and cut off its head. By now there was a second Pemex attendant, along with a trinket salesman with very bloodshot eyes, that had joined this unfolding scene. Of course they all gratefully accepted the cold beers that were passed around, especially the trinket salesman.

A conversation took place as to what to do with the dead snake. Apparently the next step was to skin it and clean it so someone could throw it into the stew pot that night. I possessed the only knife in the crowd, so I became the snake skinner. When the full length of the snake was laid open, we were all stunned to see the heart was still beating, with a steady regular pulse. At this point, the drunken trinket salesman made an off-color remark that somehow compared his wife to the decapitated, but still living, reptile. The other Mexicans all laughed hard and long at his comment. 

After removing the heart, I started carefully skinning the snake. Just then, a rather short fellow with a week’s growth of gray whiskers joined our group. He watched the careful job I was performing on the now completely dead rattler. Then, with a short burst of Spanish, he grabbed the snake and with a single pull, separated the skin from the edible part. He presented the skin to my son with a grin and said he would take the rest home for dinner. This display of native skill impressed the entire group and called for more beer. 

By this time Ramón was putting the wheel back on the trailer - he never broke stride during the entire episode. It was as though people gathered around his truck, skinned snakes and drank beer on a regular basis.

At that, we waved Adios! to our new friends and continued on our journey.