As much as I hate winter (despite the fact that it can be pretty), it can be very useful to have a reliably prolonged period cold weather from time to time.
About 3/4 of the way through our Panama adventure, Junkii started to notice itchy red bumps on parts of his skin. It was hard to tell whether it was a rash or bug bites, but of course, with travel, the immediate fear is bed bugs.
We’re generally pretty consistent about checking for bedbugs everywhere we go; but partway through our Panama adventure, there were a couple of nights when we neglected to do so.
I guess we just got lazy…or forgetful.
So, did Junkii’s skin condition mean we were infected? We weren’t taking any chances. We unpacked everything and rummaged through all our clothes, checking the seams of our luggage and our toiletries kits. We looked everywhere, but nary a bug was found.
It didn’t matter. The damage had been done.
We could have had a panel of doctors explain that it was just an allergy, but neither that nor the hours spent scouring would ever have been enough to ease the feeling that there were bedbugs SOMEWHERE in our backpacks. Junkii felt as though he had been violated…as though bugs were STILL crawling all over him.
We managed to minimize the trauma with a thorough inspection of our belongings, and thankfully the itchiness only lasted a day or two before the spots started to fade. So we were able to put the incident behind us enough to enjoy the rest of the trip – but part of what helped set our minds at ease was the knowledge that we had a secret weapon waiting for us on our return to Canada: winter.
The benefit of winter travel is that the February deep-freeze is waiting for you at home to take care of any unwanted hitchhikers. We would be able to throw our luggage outside for a week and let nature do the work that an exterminator would charge us a fortune for.
As soon as we made it home from the airport and inside the door, we stripped off, packed everything that could stay outside into our hiking bags, tossed them in a garbage bag, and threw them out on the deck.
It’s unlikely we even brought back any bed bugs, but if we did, the little bastards wouldn’t know what hit’em!
Never did find any dead bugs when we brought the stuff back inside, but Junkii is still convinced it was bed bugs.
Safarii 