An Unexpected Visitor

I suppose it was just a matter of time. It happened last Thursday. A couple of us were sent out on a mission, to check out our classroom across the way, not far at all down our dirt road. We had been cautioned that we probably should be a little bit careful as we entered, since it's a place that stays empty for long periods of time. Frankly, I sort of thought that they were being slightly overly dramatic about things.

So as I unlocked the front door, I was probably gently nudging the person I was with to hurry up and get inside. Things went south from there, though. She about floored me as she came flying out, saying something about "hay víbora adentro!" ...

Not to be confused with the millipede in the distance, the unwelcome visitor was next to the water bottle, hanging on the to the base of the chairs. Looked harmless enough.

But we opted to discontinue the tour at that point, and headed back instead to the ranch to work on a plan.

Heavily armed with two machetes and one broom, another member of our team and I headed back on over, prepared if necessary to sacrifice "todo por la patria."

To make a long story short, my partner performed heroically. He was able to push the snake around with the broom enough to be able to take a whack (or three or four) with the machete. Obviously, I guess it goes without saying that the photographer throughout all this had to have been at least equally as courageous as was my partner. The rest, as they say, was history. As it turned out, the snake was not necessarily such a small thing...

And there's a rather disturbing finale to the story. Both in our describing the snake to one of the locals and in doing some independent research of our own, it may be that our friend the snake was plenty dangerous. The local we spoke to said that he thought it may have been a black cobra and one of the more deadly snakes to be found around here. Worse yet was what we were able to find on the internet, where we found what looked to be this guy's hand twin, a snake called the Inland Taipan, which really shouldn't be found anywhere in EG. We can only hope that to be true, as the Inland Taipan is considered to be the most poisonous snake in the world. Yikes. At this point, we're looking into the possibility of just holding all of our classes outdoors, in the fresh air.