Mossies vs Mossies

I never thought I would dedicate a blog entry to mosquitoes. That was not until when I became under siege during my Choquequirao trek. I was dreading my trip to the Amazon jungle after, knowing that the welcome would be warmer, given the presence rivers and rainforest. Then I thought that since there are people like Natalie (a Dutch whom I met on a plane to Arusha) who research on Malaria, there would be people who love to read about mosquitoes.

I started getting bites on my feet from this point

To be fair I think both mosquitoes and flies bit me in the Andean mountains. What intrigued me was how they have survived the cold and altitude (they were no mosquitoes and flies in Kilimanjaro). They were very active for most part of the day and they were onto my feet the moment I changed into my slippers (no no! I don't think it was the smell).

The Andean bites gave me red nodules with a fang red mark. 

I had about 150 bites in the Andean mountains (50 on each of my arm and 50 on both feet). It has been more than one month since the Choquequirao trip, I now have scabs and the marks are getting dark and it still itches at times.

The Amazon mosquitoes pushed the total tally to 500. No, I was not exaggerating. The mosquitoes in the Amazon were very aggressive. They even bit through my clothes.  I had 9 bites on my left middle finger alone (and it was only because I poked my hands out of my long sleeve shirt to hold my camera in order to take a photograph). So if you were to extrapolate the number of bites, I easily had 500 of them. 

The Amazon mosquito bites were pink bumps which could be easily differentiated from the bite marks of the Andean ones. Most of the Amazon bumps are gone by now.

Fortunately, the Amazon mosquitoes left my face alone most of the time. When I sensed too many mosquitoes, however, I did not take the chance and covered neck and half of my face up too:

Nobody laughed at me when I did this

That was when I wished I had one of those sun caps/ hats with flap at the back - that way, I could avoid having bites on my ears and neck. Seriously, it was very very irritating when the mossies kept buzzing near my ears.

Conclusion from the trips: Mossies love tourists. I am their Chinese take-away.

Prevention

Initially I used the BioZ Natural insect repellant stick. No deet. Either it did not work well or I had not applied enough. In the jungle, everyone took pity of me. Keith sprayed his Boots Repel Tropical Strength 50% deet on me. Jhonatan sprayed his Sawyer's 100% deet on my hands and I wiped them on my clothes. Christian sprayed his Deep Woods Insect Repellant 25% deet and it kept away mosquitoes for 3 hours. 

On the last day of the trip, Miki then taught me to apply lower percentage deet repellant on the body and spray 100% deet insect repellant on the clothes. I will try that next time.

I would also get a spray instead of a stick so that the insect repellant can be applied on the clothes easily.

If I have a specific trip to the jungle next time, I may also try out one of those mosquito repellant clothes and wear lighter coloured clothes instead of heat absorbent dark coloured ones. 

Aftercare

I alternated the use of Elomet mometasone furoate cream (prescribed by the doctor for my sandfly bites previously) and tea tree oil. Both are not anti-itch but are used to treat the bites. They dry up the skin so I had to alternate the usage.

In the jungle, Christian let me try the iodine tree bark. Keith passed me his Caladryl Clear (a spray which contains pramoxine HCI and zinc acetate) which smells like calamine lotion. Miki gave me her AfterBite Itch Eraser (an applicator which contains ammonia and natural oil). 

All worked although the best solution came from Nelly, who recommended using lemon on the bites. They did not have lemon in the kitchen and Jhonatan got me a lime instead. It stung but the relief was instantaneous and I did not even have to wake up during the night to apply additional anti-itch solutions.