Insects in Ajijic, Lake Chapala, Mexico
Insects in the Ajijic, Lake Chapala, Mexico Area
Have you ever wondered why with the tax benefits, the perfect weather and the visual beauty of Ajijic, Lake Chapala the population is 2500 not 7 billion? Why would any sane person live anywhere else? I will level with you. It’s the Anthropods (aka Hempitera insects bugs, lawyers whatever scientifically defined as anything you can kill with Newsweek magazine. Not only do we have many types but they are of Japanese horror movie proportions.
So bugs are the topic of the day. I think it is safe to say that in most homes the job of exterminator falls to the man of the house. (In our case that would be by son. Although I don’t wish to offend any feminists who enjoy grinding beetle parts in the carpet.)
In Canada we have some bugs and every so often I would be required to pick one up in a Kleenex and flush it. Here most of the insects are large enough to straddle the bowl and avoid the watery grave, so most of the dirty work must be done with a machete.
The insect world has many beautiful creatures such as the mariposa (Spanish world for butterflies the size of bats that fly in your face when it is dark n the hallway causing much terror) but many more are ugly, like the earwig. These scorpion wannabe’s have the uncanny ability to appear out of thin air on your chest when you are in the tub. Truly, one of nature’s miracles.
I recently read a disturbing study form William and Mary University on a new generation of cockroach that is rapidly building up a genetic resistance immunity system to traditional extermination to where whacking them hard with your sneaker has little or no effect on them. And what the hell are those mutated things, half bumble bee half Sicorski helicopter? Local belief is that they are harmless but I am here to report they have cause me to spill more than a few drinks as I leapt out of the way.
Local residents have also told me not to kill the large spiders because they eat other bugs. Last night in my bathroom there was one that looked exactly like the ones the bad guys are always putting in James Bond’s pillow case. The sentence for breaking and entering and crawling over my toothbrush is death by paperback (even if it does mean we have to repaint the entire wall.)
One poor alacran crossed my wife’s path only to be pounded so flat it looked like a life size photograph of a lobster. I guess the scorpions are still the most feared thing in this area (except for black widows and people who want to see you things at a stop light). By the time I get there it is usually just a smear with a chalk outline around it. My wife does this to assist the police in their investigations but I don’t get the feeling they take our “The bugs are conspiring to drive us out of our home” allegations seriously.
One break that Canadians do receive is that the local mosquitoes don’t seem to enjoy feeding on us. A popular theory on this phenomenon is that because our diet consists of only back bacon and maple syrup our blood does not agree with the little blighters. I hate to be indelicate but it can cause them to be up all night with an upset intestinal system. The mosquitoes refer to this ailment as Lester B. Pearsons’s revenge.
Well kids that our show. If you are planning on sending me a blah blah blah food chain blah blah blah letter forget it. I know there is room for all God’s creatures on this earth. I just wish someone would tell that to the bugs. So if you would just roll up a paper and use it to crush that thing crawling across the table in front of you I would be very gratified as a writer.