Bugs in Mexico, and I don't mean VWs or computers

Ah, the tropics! Glorious sunsets seen through the graceful fronds of palm trees, deliciously warm weather you can gloat about while friends up north are huddling in their homes, freshly picked papayas for breakfast...

And bugs.

Nature is prolific and we have seen quite a variety of spiders, scorpions, mosquitoes, wasps, leaf-cutter ants, and other creepy crawlies and little flying things.

There are the bobos who form clouds of dozens to thousands at dusk. They are not very interested in us but it can be hard to walk through a group of them without inhaling a few. I've developed a hold-my-breath method, and now that the rains have begun, there are fewer bobos around. There is now a sort of flying ant we hadn't seen before, but in much smaller numbers.

The first times I used our swimming pool, I was intimidated by the huge wasps, a lovely golden color, who regularly took drinks from the pool. Then I noticed that they actually avoided me. Now we coexist okay. I've also learned to be relatively nonchalant about the many tiny ants and other little critters that cross my desk, dining table, or toe.

Here in the Lake Chapala area, we are at about 5000 feet and the mosquito situation is nowhere near as bad as I've found it to be at sea level. When we stayed at a beach resort on the Gulf of Mexico, my legs were immediately polka dotted. But even here, now that the rains have begun, there are enough mosquitoes to cause trouble sometimes. They are quiet little devils, so we often don't know we've been bitten till later.

If you're thinking of retiring or living in Mexico or in some other tropical haven, just expect that you will have to come to terms with insects and other such beings. We've chosen to use a spray around the doors and windows of the house to keep out the scorpions and monster spiders, and we got it from a veterinarian who said it was nontoxic to cats and dogs, once it dried. (I don't remember its name.) Kelly has used a spray can of Raid very judiciously, to kill a nest of wasps after he'd experienced the pain of their bites and to deter some leaf-cutter ants on the march.

I wear a long-sleeved shirt impregnated with something called Buzz-Off, based on pyrethrin, and it seems to cut down on my mosquito bites. (You can google Buzz-Off and find a lot of clothing products that have it. I practically lived in the shirt in Idaho last month.)

Ah, the tropics! Tranquil and teeming...