Adventures in Eden

A Six-Legged Bean Story

As posted to alt.tasteless

     A SIX-LEGGED BEAN STORY

     DATELINE: Wednesday, June 25, 1997
               Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico

     Your roving reporter will go to great lengths to bring you the facts.
     Chalk it up to journalism, but my camera fared even worse than I did,
     as you will see.

     About 12 of us intrepid "trained seamen" headed to a place called
     Eden, WAAYY out of town proper.  In fact, it's just a clearing in the
     jungle.  This is where the movie "Predator" was filmed.  They have the
     hulk of a "crashed" chopper on a cement pedestal.

     Anyhow, the first order of business was to eat, so we placed our orders.
     I had already eaten a plate of steak and eggs that morning, but decided
     to order the roasted chicken along with everyone else, along with the
     obligatory cerveza.  No Pacifico.  Damn.  Make it Dos Equis then.

     The guacamole and salsa were good, although the chips were not.  Lunch
     arrived in due Mexican time, and it was then that I noticed that there
     were chickens freely roaming the premises -- but only small ones.
     Tasteless opportunity numero uno: let's see if chickens will eat roasted
     chicken!  Not only did they eat it, they fought over it.

     Tasteless opportunity numero dos arrived quite unannounced.  I'd
     polished off half a chicken and started into the beans.  I spotted
     something dark in the beans, but since it was the same size as a bean,
     I just figured it was a black bean.  So I scooped up a forkful and
     loaded the orital cavity with gray/brown paste.  Then I started to
     chew.  Something was far crunchier than I usually associate with beans,
     so I decided it was best to spit and check.  Good thing too, most beans
     don't have legs.

     I also noticed at this point that I had only spit out half a bug.  I
     pushed the rest of my mouth contents onto a napkin and found bits and
     pieces of shell and a leg or two.  I didn't feel like piecing it
     together to see if it was all there, but I'm reasonably certain that
     it wasn't.

     Note: either roaches taste like beans, or I just wasn't prepared to
     enjoy this culinary treat.

     So I summoned a waiter, who was very embarrassed.  He got the manager,
     who tried to convince me that this was not a roach, and that "it must
     have flown into the pot.  We don't have roaches here."  Yeah, and I'm
     the King of Prussia.  They did take the meal off the bill, but never
     did bring me that shot of tequila I wanted, "to wash the shell out of
     my teeth."  Oh well, a guy can try.

     But with all the commotion (we now had every waiter in the place lined
     up to see "la cucaracha", and the mariachis sang it for us), the other
     diners couldn't help but catch on.  Some fellow tastelessers just poked
     forks into their beans and grumbled that they didn't have roaches of
     their own.  Most of the ladies came really close to gagging, especially
     when I started to get questioned about all of this, and naturally spared
     no details (including the fact that we only found a total of five legs).

     Anyhow, some finished their meals (carefully) while others did not.
     Most inspected everything very closely, and this revealed a fly in
     another person's lemonade.  I was glad now that I'd had the steak and
     eggs earlier, since I would have still been hungry otherwise.  Our lead
     trumpeter thought I should have kept quiet about the whole thing, since
     after all, this was Mexico.  Maybe I would have, but at $10 (N$65) a
     plate, I do expect clean food.  Even in Mexico.

     ObWeird: There was a guy stationed in the bathroom to hand you exactly
     two paper towels after you washed your hands.  And he had a tip jar.
     Is paper that expensive, or is labor that cheap?  (Probably both.)

     After lunch we hiked upstream into the jungle.  Two broke away and
     disappeared (not for good!), but our remaining troup of 10 had great
     fun wading through neck-deep water, holding our belongings over our
     heads like soldiers in 'Nam, or so it looked to us.  On the way up,
     I missed a step and the camera took the plunge.  I was hopeful at
     first, since the camera seemed to work still, but after arriving back
     at the ship I had to face the truth: I now have a lens cleaning bill
     of $75 or so and a shutter repair bill of probably $100 (give or take
     $25) ahead of me for that mis-step.  And the water ruined the film to
     boot.  (Dammit, I should have bought that Nikonos!)

     Oh yes, and while we were up there, it started to rain.  We came down
     with quite a bit more purpose than we had going up.

     On the way back to the ship we call home, we saw a man walking his
     raccoon (named Nicolas), many hungry-looking dogs, a dozen or so pigs
     of various sizes, and a few cattle, one of which charged us.  I know
     Mexican beef is tough, but bull vs. Chevy Suburban adds up to bashed
     bull and just a dented truck.

     I now have a touch of poison ivy rash above my left ankle, a waterlogged
     camera, various scrapes and scratches, six-legged beans in my meal, and
     a cold (we stayed wet for a very long time).  Interestingly enough, my
     stomach seems to be having an easier time than after my last Puerto
     Vallarta expedition, after which I had severe LiquiShits[tm] for two
     weeks solid.

     The morals of this story are many.
     1. Wear boots.
     2. Bring a waterproof and/or cheap camera on river expeditions.
     3. Bring dry clothes and a towel and keep them in a sealed bag.
     4. Always check out suspicious beans.

      - bill the cat
        your temporarily photo-less reporter at sea
        but always your "able-bodied seaman"

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All photos © 1997 Scott Sakurai (unless otherwise stated)