by In Mexico, when someone mentions Durango it’s inevitable not to think about the desert, western movies, the colonial and Mexican baroque buildings, and scorpions. The endemic scorpions of Durango are called Centruroides suffusus. They are thin and small and might not look as threatening as an emperor scorpion whose clamps, body, and stinger are thick and shiny, but their venom can kill a human being in minutes if not treated on time. In Durango, they’ve learned to live with them.
They shake their shoes before wearing them just in case there’s a sneaky scorpion hiding in there. When I visited Durango for the first time they told me all kinds of stories about natives being stung by these animals. It’s so normal to have them around that they have an antidote for their venom in every emergency room. I’m a big arachnid lover, and it might sound egocentric or whatever, but I didn’t want to leave Durango without a scorpion or two to take home and show them to my friends. I decided to take a cable car that departs from el Barrio del Calvario and takes visitors up to a mirador on el Cerro de Los Remedios. Once I was up on the mountain walking around the mirador I found a lady with a tank filled with around 300 scorpions crawling and falling on top of each other. I asked the lady if she would let me keep two of them and she gave them to me in a small glass container where I put sand from the desert to keep them comfy for the road trip back to my city. I didn’t realize I was creating bad karma against me by keeping that pair of scorpions as souvenirs.
I had them in my room in a big tank for about six months. I fed them with worms, crickets, and cockroaches, but they definitely preferred the cockroaches. I learned that those scorpions can’t actually see. They use a pair of glands under their bellies to sense the temperature and movement of their surroundings and that’s how they realized another bug was in the tank for their consumption. They like eating their prey alive so I would always have to make sure their food didn’t die on my hands before releasing them in the tank for their mutilation. I got so comfortable with my scorpions that I got to the point of pushing them around with my fingers. I was too confident or maybe too stupid to try to make one of them climb up my hand but I received an attack in response. One of the scorpions had stung me and I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t in Durango and there are no scorpions in my city so I assumed there was no antidote around to alleviate my situation. It was the night before my first day of classes as a senior in high school and I had to wake up at 5 am the next morning. I didn’t want to go to the hospital so I didn’t wake my parents up. I decided to remain calm and not panic because the faster my heart went the riskier it was for me. I started feeling goosebumps right after the scorpion got its stinger inside my finger. My back, neck, and hands were sweaty for a while and my palms were itchy. Every website online recommended going to a doctor but I honestly didn’t want to make a big deal out of it since my parents were really hesitant about me getting those scorpions for that precise reason. So I just resisted. I resisted the pain for about an hour. I read that it was recommended not to lay down nor fall asleep after being stung by one of those scorpions but I needed to sleep! It was 1 am and I had to wake up at 5 am. I needed to sleep! It was the first day of my last year of high school. I said to myself “Well, if you don’t ever wake up after this, you don’t have to go to school,” and I swear I was so tired that as soon as laid my head on my pillow all my body went numb and my mind shut off. I woke up feeling a little bit dizzy and my whole arm was still in pain, but at least I survived. I got ready for school without telling anyone about what happened during that night and I just said good morning to the scorpions in the tank. I assumed the one who stung me was tired like me and I fed him before leaving my room. After that experience, I feel like very few things can make me afraid of losing my life.
