With Great Beauty – Comes Great Big Bugs

I’ve thought recently how much the lush green landscape of South Africa reminds me of Costa Rica and Guam. It feels like everywhere you turn there is a beautiful view. The landscape is covered in a canopy of green, the sky is often clear and bright blue, and sounds of nature are all around. I love it so much! However, I was reminded recently that with great beauty, comes great big bugs!

Cockroach Karma?

A couple days ago, when Dave turned on the lights to make coffee he saw our first cockroach scamper across the kitchen counter. We’ve been in South Africa for two weeks and thought we were in the clear of these nasty little horrors. We were wrong. I guess at least it wasn’t in my shower!

We’ve adjusted to a lot of things this year, but cockroaches are not one of them. They truly are the stuff of nightmares and the most unwelcome house guest. During a recent hike I had a praying mantis land on my water bottle. We sent this picture to Dave’s sister as a joke simply because we know she hates them. Maybe the arrival of cockroaches is karma? Our deepest apologies, Mel!

Cockroach Kitchen Party

Last night as we were laying in bed trying to go to sleep I kept hearing a chirping noise. I asked Dave if cockroaches made noise and neither of us knew the answer. Dave got up and used his phone flashlight to investigate. There were three cockroaches just hanging out on the counter! Ugh! We found some spray under the sink and Dave successfully doused all of them. Two crawled under a cabinet and died. I scooped them up and put them outside. The third one is still MIA. Trying to go to sleep after that heart rate spike was not easy!

We woke up around 2am and Dave checked the kitchen again to see if there were more. Luckily he didn’t see any. However, I can’t get the image of hundreds of cockroaches scampering around behind our kitchen wall out of my head. I will miss a lot of things about this year when it’s over – but bugs is NOT one of them!

Monkey Trouble

We saw a monkey outside our condo last week, but haven’t seen any since. Today as we were walking around outside during our school break we saw four of them being shewed off someone’s balcony, and they ran right past us. There is a nature reserve directly behind our condo, and we assume they must live in there. The reserve has been closed since we arrived due to staffing issues, but is supposed to open on Thursday. We’ve been really looking forward to checking it out.

These monkey’s made Alexis a little leery. She said “It just feels like they are going to mug me.” I don’t disagree. It’s a little unsettling to see a monkey coming straight at you. I’m not sure what we will experience when the reserve opens. Although, I think everyone can agree that a monkey is much cuter than a cockroach!