Critters

A very pleasant surprise has been the absence of one of the more worrisome little critters, the mosquito. I think I've seen all of about ten of them in two and a half weeks. By now, I'd have thought I would have already been on my second or third bottle of mosquito repellent, but there's been no need. Everyone still takes their malaria pills without fail, but at least so far the little guys who carry it aren't to be found.

But it has been interesting to check the outside walls around here to see what's crawling on them on any given day. Lizards of various sizes and colors are very common. I just saw what appeared to be almost like a miniature iguana, about 18 inches long, wandering across my balcony. He's the biggest one I've seen so far. This guy was probably only about the length of my hand...

And across the way on the opposite wall that same day was this cute little praying mantis which was maybe a couple of inches long...

And then there's a pretty fair-sized chameleon that likes to spend time around our office's air conditioning units. He's a handsome fellow, and probably about 10 inches in length.

Less photogenic are the spiders and snakes that cause varying degrees of fear and concern among folks here. There's been one major spider spotting, about a week ago, crawling around on our walls early one morning. He's now a dead spider.

Also in the not-so-photogenic category would be the rats that might otherwise hang around and be seen more often were it not for the regular fumigating (which includes "desratificación" which was a new Spanish word for many of us to learn). Surprisingly, you don't see cats anywhere.

But among the 4-legged critters that you do see are the dogs who routinely patrol our front gate in the evenings. Rumor has it that someone among us feeds them, although by looking at them it doesn't appear that any of them does too much eating. But they're a friendly bunch.