HIO: Good evening: Once while my partner and I were walking down the coast of Michoacan we decided to cut over to the actual beach area for some sea food and swimming. We set up camp at the mouth of a small arroyo (wash) where we could watch the play of phosphorescence in the multiple waves, it was actually quite beautiful to watch.
At this time there were NO roads on the coast, just few trails and jungle. The roads came much later. We hadn't seen a sign of anyone for almost a week and felt quite alone in our little paradise. Between the jungle and the sea, we were well supplied with food.
One night just after dark while we were resting with a full tummy of chachalaca Mexican pheasant), rice and herbs, tea, with clams for an after diner delicacy,we saw two human figures bent over in almost a crouch running towards us, back lit by the Sea glow.
This was a strict breach of jungle manners, one is supposed to announce their presence and intentions by singing or whistling?? Here we had two men apparently bent upon rushing us in the dark. To this day I will never know why we never fired upon them, but we didn't . As they drew closer, it turned to be two Indians that were half drunk, which explained the lax of the jungle law. They were bent over since they were carrying armloads of hot tamales etc for us. It seems that they had come to the sea also to feast and upon seeing us there they decided to invites us. We hadn't seen them??
Sober they would never have approached us in that manner. They later admitted that we would have been fully justified in shooting them. The main reason that we didn't, was that we were fully conditioned and trained with complete confidence in our shooting skill that we were able to wait until the last moment.
We subsequently became great friends and only parted company after a week.of swimming, hunting, and food gathering together.
Don Jose de La Manch
