Once upon a time in Mexico Traditional Cache
Once upon a time in Mexico
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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Are you a Mexican or a Mexican’t?
A bloke and his family were on holidays and went to Mexico for a week. An avid cactus fan, the man bought a one-metre high, rare and expensive cactus there. On arrival back home Australian Customs said it must be quarantined for three months.
He finally got his cactus home, planted it in his backyard, and over time it grew to about two metres. One evening while watering his garden after a warm spring day, he gave the cactus a light spray. He was amazed to see the plant shiver all over, he gave it another spray and it shivered again. He was puzzled so he rang the council who put him on to the state gardens people.
After a few transfers he got the state's foremost cactus expert who asked him many questions. How tall is it? Has it flowered? etc. Finally he asked the most disturbing question. "Is your family in the house?" The bloke answered yes. The cactus expert said get out of the house NOW, get on to the front nature strip and wait for me, I will be there in 20 minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, two fire trucks, two police cars and an ambulance
came screaming around the corner. A fireman got out and asked "Are you the bloke with the cactus?" I am, he said. A guy jumped out of the fire truck wearing what looked like a space suit, a breathing cylinder and mask attached to what looked like a scuba backpack with a large hose attached. He headed for the backyard and turned a flame-thrower on the cactus spraying it up and down. After a few minutes the flame-thrower man stopped, the cactus stood smoking and spitting, half the fence was burnt and parts of the gardens were well and truly scorched.
Just then the cactus expert appeared and laid a calming hand on the bloke's shoulder. "What the hell's going on?" he says. "Let me show you" says the cactus man. He went over to the cactus and picked away a crusty bit, the cactus was almost entirely hollow and filled with tiger striped bird-eating tarantula spiders, each about the size of two hand spans.
The story was that this type of spider lays eggs in this type of cactus and they hatch and live in it as they grow to full size. When full size they release themselves. The cactus just explodes and about 1500 dinner plate sized hairy spiders are flung from it, dispersing everywhere. They had been ready to pop.
I know the story above is not true but it certainly sounds good for this location.
Cactus gardens was always a pit stop on our way south to Adelaide in the 60’s and 70’s. You can only drive so far with five kids in the car. We used to have a lot of fun running that energy off in the maze. It is all closed up now. Hell of a lot of interesting specimens though. Watch out for spiders.
The cache does have a theme. Little green men, LGM’s, should be the only swaps. Take your time you will see them all the time.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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