Saturday afternoon, just before gloaming, Malcolm and I were walking into the Yucatan jungle. We had followed a sign and down a trail and it seemed very safe and civilized until we saw a tapir, a howler monkey, a tropical raccoon of uncommon length, a ground dwelling hominid of the missing link variety, or a tepesquintle crossing the road four feet in front of us. I - you might have guessed - am partial to the penultimate possiility. And this is why we turned around. Malcolm was compelled to go on, while I was inclined to run, very carefully back to the safety of the monoliths. My problem is that I have never been close, never been confronted by a real wild thing. (there was that Donkey Who Stole My Wallet in St. John, but that is another story). I like the idea of monkeys, as obedient and clever pets, as observers watching with shrewd eyes, unnoticed amid the flora, and as our earnest if inferior evolutionary relatives. Monkey theory, I am thinking, is a lot more charming than monkey actuality. Especially because living among the ruins of the Post Classical Maya, who knows what they may have picked up - astronomy, architecture, the mathematics of sacrifice. So, even though I wanted to see the habitacions of Dzibilchaltun and continue to feel that frisson of being sort of alone in the woods, the prospect of super smart simians wanting to make me their bride delivered me quicly back to the field.

Then on Sunday while exploring the village of Telchac Puerto, driving down its sandy roads enjoying the bright blue day, and about to confer upon it adorable status, a locust flew into the car and landed on my shorts. You may remember locusts, those Biblical grasshoppers that fly and swarm and destroy crops, terrorizing the Egyptians and foreshadowing end of times - yeah, one of those was on me. It was dry and earth brown like a late autumn leaf and obviously menacing, disusting and capable of eating my face off. I freaked out, flailing about the driver's seat. These are insects described collectively as a "plague" by believers and atheists alike. In the same way one might describe a grist of bees, a flange of baboons, a herd of chinchillas, a congregation of crocodiles, a pod of dolphins, a team of seals or a flock of sheep, one will say, "oh look, there goes the plague of locusts". That is if you stick around long enough in Locust Land to see their numbers blackening the sky, which I, for one, do not. Malcolm, who is obviously a lunatic wanted to leave the relative safety of the car, and against my better judgement, I followed him to the beach. In doing so, I found myself tiptoeing over a minefield of locust corpses. I do not like anything that drops dead on the spot as soon as its has committed its aviary atrocities. We had heard that there have been in the area, passing over Telchac on their way to fulfill their dark destiny. It was simply unexpected to find one on my lap. We got out of Telcchac as fast as the Jetta could carry us. Back to Progreso where I bought a sack of green and yellow oranges and a pirated DVD of Blood Diamondfor $60 mxp. What a weekend.