The reason I’m telling you this is just to prepare you so you won’t freak out. Maybe you are freaking out now, thinking, “Invasions of creatures?! Lonely Planet doesn’t mention that!” I know how some of you are when you see unwanted critters in your living space. You squeal, screech, scream, cry, jump upon furniture, run from the room in hysterics, all of the above. So you need to get over that or it’s going to be difficult for you. I’m not saying you have to like seeing such things. Not at all. I’m just saying you need to treat these creatures less as scary interlopers and more as roommates – maybe a roommate you don’t like to see or talk to or share your pizza with, but a roomie just the same.
In the places I have stayed in Latin America and the Caribbean, I have seen mice, geckos, frogs, bats, spiders, roaches, scorpions and various other animals high on the “ick” meter. I don’t really mind any of them except the cockroaches and scorpions, although I don’t scream when I see them (not loudly at least). The others I have no problem with generally speaking. I don’t want any of them in my bed mind you, but in another part of the room or house is tolerable for me.
Geckos are one of my favorite creatures and I have no issue with these little lizards that crawl up and down the walls of tropical houses and hotels, chirping their little chirp, and cleverly and kindly eating the eggs of such undesirables as cockroaches. I think they’re cute and actually enjoy seeing them (this admiration came well before those insurance commercials). One time I was visiting St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands and was staying at this great eco-resort that had tent-cabins built above the ground, connected by elevated walkways. Upon arriving, I was tired from traveling and lay down on the bed for a minute. There was this weird odor that smelled like rotten Doritos. Now, I don’t know if Doritos are capable of rotting and I certainly have never actually smelled rotten Doritos. But that is what it smelled like. Sort of like Doritos, but really, really bad, and certainly not edible. So I finally decided to look under the bed and see if the last guests had maybe left a bag of Doritos that had become all moldy or something. I did not see any Doritos or snack chips of any kind. What I did see was a dead gecko. Who knew they smelled like that? But I didn’t scream or freak out. I just went to the front desk and told them, and they promptly came in like “the Wolf” in Pulp Fiction, removed the body, and bleached the area (which was a tiny area, as geckos are tiny). If you let these things bother you, you can have nightmares, which will really put a damper on your trip. You need your sleep for exploring, hiking, snorkeling, etc. So don’t sweat it! Cycle of life and all. Yadda, yadda. (It didn’t even ruin my taste for Doritos).
On a trip to Nicaragua a couple years ago, I had a similar-ish run-in with strange roommates. I had just arrived at a nice, small hotel in Granada and went to the bathroom in my room to wash my hands. But there was something strange in the sink. “Hmmm, what is that?” I wondered. “Is that some sort of oddly placed decoration in the sink? Why would they put a carving like that inside the sink? It doesn't even match.”
Then I realized: bats! Dead bats in my sink! Woah. But I didn’t freak out. I remained calm. I have a fascination with bats, so I respect them and am not afraid of them. But still, they were dead and in my sink! So I went to the front desk to inform the staff. They came, they saw, they changed me to another room. Then I heard one of the them saying, “Están vivos! Están vivos!” Okay, so they weren’t dead afterall. I encouraged the staff not to kill the bats and they told me they are protected in Nicaragua anyway, so that wasn’t an option. So I don’t know what happened to the bats, but I just decided not to ask any follow-up questions. Ugly little things must’ve been thirsty and decided to take a nap. It happens to the best of us. I personally prefer it to happen when I’m comfortably lounging in a hammock, holding a cold, tropical cocktail.
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| Holy napping bats, Batman! The subjects seen here were caught drunk and passed out in my bathroom sink. I am proud to say that no freaking out occurred upon their discovery. I was even calm enough to take this lovely photo. |
I have also chased and captured a frog that came through a hotel air conditioner in Puerto Rico. In the house I lived in in Panama, I would sit downstairs on the couch and watch little mice chase each other around the walls. In an adorable hotel on the shores of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, the shared bathroom was invaded nightly by big-ass spiders (not their technical name) that just hung out on the walls and watched people pee. The hotel owner told me they were lazy and harmless, and I believed her. But I didn’t mention it to my dad and his friend who were traveling with me at the time, because I didn’t want them to freak out if they hadn’t noticed them. The subject never came up, so maybe they hadn’t noticed them.
But I’m not always brave. Although hardly a tropical locale, I once found a scorpion in my bag in Guanajuato, Mexico (I mentioned in a previous post that it is quite dry there). My mom was visiting and I made her get rid of it. If I am nonchalant about weird creatures, my mother is even more so. She rolled her eyes at my fear. And like I said, I’m not a big fan of the cockroach, but I have learned to tolerate them, get away from them, get them away from me, have someone else get them away from me, or just not think about them too much when they are in the vicinity.
In my host house in Quepos, Costa Rica, a friend I made there who stayed in a room down the hall yelled for me one night. There was a spider in her room. “Okay, I’m coming,” I said. “I don’t have a problem with spiders.” Then I got to her room and, “Holy crap!” It was a bit bigger than a daddy long-legs. I sure as heck wasn’t going to kill it, because it was the size of a small animal. So we had to capture it and put it into the arachnid relocation program. My friend Sietske went downstairs to the kitchen to get a container of some kind. Everyone was in bed, so once in the kitchen, she had to turn the lights on and quickly saw that cockroaches were out for their nightly invasion. Lots of them. She returned, thoroughly creeped out, but with a small plastic tub in hand. We put the tub over the spider on the wall, then slipped a piece of cardboard behind the tub, between the wall and the spider’s legs so we could get him (I decided he was a boy spider) into the tub and contain him. And it worked. We ran down the stairs -- piece of cardboard over the top of the tub to prevent Spidey’s escape -- out of the house, into the street, and to the corner so as to get him as far from the house as possible.
Guess what was in my room the next night? Yep. The spider had returned and wanted me to know that my genius plan had not worked. So I just said “Okay, you win. You don’t bother me and I won’t bother you.” And there were no problems. I was impressed he understood my English.
If I were to see most of these creatures at home in the U.S., I would be appalled and quite disconcerted. But when I’m traveling, I just see it as a part of the environment and something new. My frame of mind changes when I travel. Everything is a new experience; everything is part of the charm, even the creepy-crawly things. I don’t necessarily want these critters getting too close, but I figure if I’m visiting their country, the least I can do is give them a little space.
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