“Don’t let the bed bugs bite” Sara said as I left dinner to take a shower.

It was inevitable. Having escaped the great bed bug invasion in New York a couple of years ago (when even Bloomingdale’s wasnt spared) my luck was bound to catch up to me. 

7am this morning, my hostel roommate, Sara wakes me up and asks me if her eye looks puffy. To be honest, I couldn’t tell. However, at breakfast, an hour later she proceeded to tell us how she felt itchy and then rolled up her sleeves and trousers to reveal giant red welts everywhere. 

We jumped back, raced to the room and inspected the sheets – sure enough tiny little bugs had migrated to the other beds. Photos were taken, clothes were gathered. The hostel sprayed the room and tried to convince my roommates (at this time, I was off hiking in the jungle, barefoot, less worried about bed begs and more worried about tropical dieseases) that it was safe to go back in. 

Luckily my roommates were no dummies and demanded different, upgraded rooms. 

So now we sit in our upgraded rooms, showered, laundered, and slightly itchy – hoping that we haven’t brought any with us, hoping that the red marks we are scratching are from mosquitos and not from horrible, horrible bed bugs. 

Note: as of now, I’m not infected