I guess Utila was the area in my mission that was most abundant in the creepy crawly sorts of things most people instinctively avoid. There were the sand flies which were a sort of biting fly which became a constant nuisance at the beach whenever the winds ceased and there was a calm on the island, but I'm not talking about this type of creature. The types of critters I'm talking about now are the stuff of nightmares for most people.
When we awoke most mornings, it was very early and the sun was still working its way up into the sky not yet having rounded the horizon. The house by then was light enough to navigate without the aid of a light, but too dark to see clearly with shadows still dominating it. And what was lurking in the nooks and crannies was anyone's guess.
I would always start my day with a shower. Our shower was probably unlike anything you have ever used and was very primitive. The houses on Utila were all built on stilts and sat up four feet or so off the ground. This was for hurricane season and kept the houses on the island from being swamped during the storm surges that the hurricanes brought with them.
The shower was nothing more than a crude pipe sticking out of the wall, and one had to step down about two feet to get into the shower from the main floor. The other end of the pipe traveled along until it tied into a water tank which was open on the top with a screen across it to keep animals and debris from falling into it.
The tank was replenished from the rains which were quite abundant on the island. Because the shower tank was filled from the rains which fell, in the mornings, the water was very cold having cooled all night long...almost too cold to bear. Our showers were quick and purposeful with focused attention to the hurried details at hand. The drain was simply a hole at the bottom and when we showered, water spilled out onto the jungle floor below.
When I was standing down in the shower, the water pipe sat a few inches above my head which for me was quite a luxury and convenience. In Honduras I was known in some parts as el gigante which meant the giant. I am not absurdly tall for the United States of America, but was taller than almost everyone in Honduras and found that many of the accommodations of that country didn't fit me very well.
Buses, for example had very low ceilings and whenever I had to stand because the bus was too crowded for everyone to have a seat, I'd have to hunch over unless lucky enough to be stationed at a door. When I was so lucky, I would hang onto the bus with my head above the roof and the wind in my hair. Because the buses were always overcrowded, for the most part I rode standing, and this spot at the door was by far my favorite.
So, when I found something that actually fit me without my having to force myself to fit it, I felt twice blessed and was very content. Such was the case with this shower. It fit me very well and I was content. But something happened one day which made me view the shower ever after with suspicion and care. Early one morning I stepped down into the shower as I'd done many times before and braced myself for the inevitable rush of cold water and no sooner had the water arrived than I saw something directly in front of my face.
It's a very odd and disorienting feeling to sense an unexpected presence in the shower with you, and not being able to see clearly what it was made me freeze completely as I tried desperately to make sense of what I was seeing.
What I was seeing was a very large snake that began uncoiling from the pipe sticking out of the wall as it made its way down in front of my body toward the drain. About halfway into its slow and deliberate descent I realized what I had there in the shower with me and that knowledge only added to my paralysis. I pushed my body back into the wall as far as I could and stiffened up like a board unable to move as the snake leisurely descended to the floor below.
By the time it had reached the drain and its head was finding its way through the hole in the floor, part of it was still wrapped around the pipe and it was still uncoiling. This snake was enormous. I stand six and a half feet tall and the pipe it was coiled around was a few inches above my head so the snake was well over seven feet long and may have even exceeded eight feet in length.
When the snake was finally gone I jumped out of the shower and told my companion what had just happened. At first he didn't believe me but some of the local people confirmed that there were indeed snakes that size on the island. After that, even he began peering carefully into the shower before stepping down into it in the mornings.
Everyone said not to worry, that there were no poisonous snakes on the island. I did find some comfort in that fact, but even so, sharing the shower with an eight foot snake will never be a pleasant experience for me and from then on I always checked the shower thoroughly before entering just in case another snake found its way up through the open drain.
Thankfully, that snake never returned nor did any others while I stayed on the island. It was not something I wanted to experience twice. Being confined to a tight space with an eight foot snake, poisonous or not, is not something I ever hope to repeat.
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