Adapted from Jim Conrad's online book A Birding Trip through Mexico; This excerpt from "Above Xoconostle," in San Luis Potosí state
SEWING THE INDIAN WAY

sewing with an agave fibers and thorn

Samalayuca's scorching sand converted my shoes to brittle cardboard, then climbing canyon walls at Bahuichivo and Témoris shattered them, leaving my toes poking through the sides and the shoes' heels flapping and snagging in grass. In Mazatlán I tried to buy new shoes but in Mexico, except in the largest cities, it's simply impossible to find my large size. Since I seem to have forgotten my sewing kit, today I sew my shoes "the Indian way."

At limestone ledges where oak forest gives way to white limestone outcrops, the most striking plant is the knee-high agave shown at the right, consisting of a bristling rosette of thick, succulent, leathery, sharp-pointed leaf-blades. More than once, looking for birds more than watching were I was going, spiny agave blade-tips have punctured my legs.

I cut a narrowly triangular blade-tip into a section about as long as the picture is high. The tip's cut base, about as thick as a finger, oozes a watery mucilage. Across the sliced face, embedded in yellow-green matrix material, it's easy to see cross sections of severed, stringlike veins feeding toward the black, bone-hard spine tip.

With a blunt woodchip I scrape the amputated section so that juice and pulpy green matter discharge from the cut face and the soft skin peels away. At first it's very messy but after ten minutes of scraping I'm left with a black awl firmly secured to about a dozen tough, threadlike fibers.

The agave-awl proves to be sharp and strong enough to pierce my shoes' rubbery soul and leather uppers. When the sewing is finished I'm very pleased with the improvement.