Blood Suckers LOVE Mer

It's true. I remember my first night in Hawaii some 25 years ago after playing an evening game of croquet and counting no less than 45 mosquito bites on my body. Then there was San Ignacio, Belize, and the Yucatan, and the jungles of Tikal, Guatemala, where I suffered a slightly higher number of assaults even after spreading copious amounts of deet on my face and body (I am amazed how quickly priorities change when inundated by blood suckers...suddenly spreading dangerous pesticides onto your hot sweating skin seems like a very good idea).

Well, last week there were hundreds of well fed sand flies and mosquitoes on the small Caribbean island of Utila....fattened with my blood leaving me looking like I have the pox. Bare with me while I have a little catharsis by sharing my torment with you all. Imagine being bitten about 250 times (at least...I counted), legs, arms, neck, feet, face, ears...anything exposed being assaulted with small punctures, sucked, and injected with a relentless irritant. Now imagine being in the tropics where the slightest...and I mean the slightest exertion (i.e. breathing, beating heart, etc) precipitates some kind of healthy sweating.

Now imagine those 250+ bites being antagonized by the tropical heat and sweating...so much so that you succumb to the perverted seduction and begin to scratch yourself with increasing vigor all the while knowing you are facilitating your own deeper decent into itch hell. Such was my life on Utila, a place the guide books say is "notorious for voracious sandflies." I don't think I have read a more accurate description of anything in any guidebook. But in some kind of twisted yin yang balancing, the one thing that brought relief, besides unconsciousness, was salt water. When I slipped (or ungracefully fell) into the ocean, all was quieted. The itching stopped. There was peace. And as I dried in the sun, the sea salt crusting on my skin, the relief persisted.

But alas, with a freshwater shower at the end of the day, hell sprang forth yet again and I helplessly scratched myself and spread the barely effective hydrocortizone ointment over my wounds...and then drank a bit of rum and tried to distract myself by conversing with all the characters that live in or move through that strange little island community. And in the end would I say the torment was worth it? Absolutely. But I still have scabs all over my body and I still look like I have the pox. Thankfully, it has not left me the pariah...yet.