Keep this way the heck out of reach of children.

The 19-hour San Jose-San Salvador bus trip was getting kind of old. The movies they play on buses always seem to fall short of the mark, and the seats are only comfortable for an hour or two, if you’re lucky.

But then one of my fellow travelers revealed that his Costa Rican family manufactures some of the hottest chile sauce on the planet, and he happened to have several bottles with him.

Boredom eliminated.

We broke out a bag of chips, and started dribbling on the sweet-smelling dark sauce, in the same self destructive manner in which people do tequila shots. Chips entered mouth, teeth duly crunched them away, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, all other worldly distractions ceased as a nuclear winter of taste spread through our mouths.

It was a bit like experiencing real cold for the first time. Normal jalepeño chile is 40, habanero is 20, but Blair’s Ultra Death Sauce (including a convenient skull keychain) is 30 below with a vicious windchill. Before that experience, you never really comprehended that degree of cold, or, as the case may be, hot.

I ate maybe a half a teaspoon, and soon the sweat was pouring off like a waterfall. Even in my inner ear. Whatever gunk was lying around in the sinuses, it was blasted away.

What I remember most about the experience is really what I don’t remember. Time seemed to stop, as all of the body’s nerve endings focused on the sensation. Just writing about it is making me tear up again.

The high lasted for about an hour, the stomach ache for much longer, and without getting too graphic, let’s say that good chile always burns, ahem, twice.

On the climbing trip, the sauce became a kind of game. New people would be compelled to go through the initiation rite, to the benefit of all around. Some of the more prankster types even used it to ramp up a few of the common bottles of chile that are found on restaurant tables.

Suffice it to say that some of the pupusas in downtown San Salvador are going to taste much more assertive for a while.

But me, I think I’ll stick to habanero, leaving the Ultra Death only for very special occasions.