« Famous Chicken Drop | Home | The Great Road North »
Snakes
By mcdog | April 18, 2007
The two lads appear at the doorway, on the other side of the flyscreen. We greet Marcus, and him and his mate push the door open and enter the kitchen. Herself is tapping away at the laptop keyboard, writing an email to a friend in Wales who has problems of the slightly more serious than where-shall-we-eat-today or should-I-wear-the-green-or-the-brown-shorts variety. I realise Marcus’s mate has a snake draped over his neck, it’s about five or six feet long. He’s holding the head firmly in one hand and the coiled tail in the other. They found it in the big woodpile near the small furniture factory just across the road. I walked through that woodpile not ten minutes before pushing a five-gallon water container home in a wheel-barrow from the local shop. The snake is a minor trophy to be admired and then released or sold, we’re not sure which. Maybe that will depend on circumstances, but we are not looking to buy a snake.
There’s a short conversation about whether anyone present has ever eaten snake. Nobody has and nobody offers to cook this one, so no snake sarnies today.
Marcus spies some people walking along the road, and the two friends run to join them. The snake is admired and then Marcus’s mate releases it into the grass. There’s a mention of it eating rats and mice. I think a rat would be a very good meal for a snake of that size.
The kids around here collect snakes, baby lizards and baby crocodiles. I have eaten croc, in a restaurant in Brisbane. Perhaps they’ll bring us a croc next time.
Topics: ambergris caye01 | No Comments »