Urban Jungle and Just Jungle

I'm not a nature girl. I did spend six months in Kenya when I was in college, much of it spent hiking and camping outdoors, and I figure I've done my time. Since then, I am comfortable viewing nature through the window of a four-star hotel, and a closed one at that.

I made an exception at our latest vacation to Mexico at a high-end resort near Puerto Vallarta. It was one of the most physically beautiful places I've visited -- thick jungle hillside up from a stunning patch of beach not too ruined by the boat loads of cruise-ship day trippers.

But nature had a way of finding us even if we weren't looking for it. My husband was stung by a scorpion as he was putting on a shirt to go to lunch (that's what he gets for being civilized). A scorpion sting is nasty and painful, but usually not deadly. The poison hits the nervous system and runs its course, trying to close off the throat and paralyze the limbs. Larry went numb, went pale through his sunburn, then was taken on the back of the man they called "the rabbit" down the hill at a dead run to the village doctor. The doctor had clearly seen worse. Es normale, he kept telling us when Larry would moan his next symptom. But hours later, he walked himself back up the hill to a waiting glass of tequilla.

Before I left, I wrote about my encounter with wildlife in San Francisco, which aired on KQED. You can listen here.