Read the first part of this blog entry in Scorpions and spiders near Alto Lucero 1
We continued our walk, to the left, since I was hoping we could get down the slope a bit. Esme waited for me to return from my scouting party, to see if it was possible to get down. But it looked too steep.
I had a nice view though, I could see the road the bus had taken to Alto Lucero, and to the right the canyon. I walked carefully a bit more down, and took another picture.
Esme and I held a little break, enjoying the view. We saw the fog flowing down the hills in the distance reducing the view more and more, an amazing thing to watch. We decided to walk a bit more in the opposite direction, back from where we had come, and then slowly return to the village as the fog came closer and closer.
I walked ahead, and suddenly I noticed a huge number of large ants running around on a huge piece of stone. Then I suddenly noticed a scorpion, an adult female Centruroides gracilis, trying to avoid the ants. An ant climbed on its back and bit the scorpion, and the scorpion flicked the ant off its back in a smooth movement with its tail. I let the scorpion walk on my hand, avoiding the ants, and put it some distance away from them.
But the scorpion somehow decided that the best way to go was straight back among the angry ants. Esme had caught up, and was watching the antics of the scorpion while I used the camera to make a short movie. The scorpion ran like crazy while ants attacked it several times. I kept filming, and again tried to get the scorpion back on my hand, which took several attempts. I got bitten by one ant, and finally the scorpion managed to climb on my hand, using one pincer to hold the skin of my hand and pulling itself up.
And before I knew it, it was hiding under my arm. With a little help from Esme, the scorpion moved on my backpack, which I carefully removed from my back. Again I made the scorpion walk on my hand, and put it down into the grass. This time quite some distance from the upset ants.
The scorpion walked a little around before it decided to hide deep between the grass. Esme guessed that somehow the scorpion had upset the ants, after which the ants all came outside their nest, and tried to attack the scorpion or locate the animal. And she might have been right, because when we looked back, only a few ants were walking on the stone. Also this was the first time we saw a scorpion walking out in the open. They are nocturnal, and although there was not much light left, and quite some fog, it was not really dark.
We decided to walk a little bit more, and then return to the village. The fog came closer and closer to where we were walking, and soon we saw the fog appearing around us as well.
I took several photos of a a big cactus with the canyon and the coming fog as a background. We continued our walk and reached another slope, again it was way too steep to walk down.
The view was magnificent despite the fog hiding most of it. We talked about returning one day soon and trying to descend into the barranca (canyon). When I looked behind Esme it was clear that the fog was getting very serious, and so we started on our way back.
We walked back into the direction of the small track between the meadows. Not only the fog was starting to become a problem, but also it was slowly getting more and more dark. And even though we had a good idea of how to get back, we wanted to hurry up because visibility was dropping fast.
Read the last part of this blog entry in Scorpions and spiders near Alto Lucero 3.