The fight against Bed Bugs

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Hello

Grae and I are now in Chile, we flew down from Peru Two days ago and we are leaving Chile today. It was a flying stop, really just to break up the flights from Peru to Australia and perhaps see a Little of Santiago.

Well, we haven´t really seen much of Santiago at all, unless you call the bottom of my Mojito glass or the Laundrette typical Santiago.

The reason for this being the dirty hostel in Lima.

I got bitten alot when we were in Lima, at first I thought it was just mosquitos, But we soon realised it was bed bugs. We didn´t actually see them but they were there, mocking me silently from under the matress.

When we arrived in Santiago we decided to do a little research about them and found out they are one of the nastiest criters going - ok they dont spread disease (Only hep B but we were vacinated against that) but they do feed off your blood and I seem to have quite a severe reaction to them, I am coming up in large welts that are soooo itchy I could scratch my skin off !

The worst thing is that they can survive off the body for 18 months !!!!! So we could very well have brought them to Chile with us. At reading this, I just about freaked out - I did not want to be carrying these Little critters around with us for the rest of the trip, I especially did not want to take them to J and Helens or Grae´s Mums house or even home with us, so we took to battle stations yesterday. This entalied a rather elaborate plan to rid ourseleves of the critters by -

Zapping all fabric in the washing machine and then the tumble dryer - ( they die at heat of more than 40 degrees for more than 5 mins)

Washing our shoes in the hostel basin

Ziplock bagging all belongings that we could wash and then keep away from other possibly contaminated stuff.

We had to buy new clothes to go to the launderette in - I was basically walking down Chile's version of Oxford street, wearing no bra or knick knacks, a vest top, tracksuit pants and just to top it off silver ballerina shoes ! Oh I looked a sight.

Ok Ok I went a bit OTT, but in my defense they live for 18 months lying dormant !

We are pretty sure we have now gotten rid of them as I suffered no bites last night, and we were methodical in our attack plan !

So today we leave Santiago and we haven´t been to see one sight, so I really cant tell you what it´s like at all. except that the lady in the launderette was really helpfull. !

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