The Mosquito Massacre

Oh.my.gosh.
 
Brace yourselves for this one.
(To my family, especially my sister Sarah, you are really going to get a kick out of this...)

Do I like insects?
No. 
Do I like insects that can FLY? 
Especially not. (if you know me very well then you definitely know my ridiculous fear of flying bugs getting trapped in my hair hahah. Don't judge.)

Well, near Corozal there are some Mayan ruins named Cerros. So we thought "Hey! Let's check this place out and maybe we can take one of our groups up here! We will explore! It will be fun! Yeah!"

Yeah???
NO.

First let me tell you, the drive out there was beautiful! It was about an hour on a long dirt road in the middle of the rainforest. Then we had to take our car across the river on this tiny little wooden "ferry" as they call it where two Belizean men cranked it the whole way across. All was well... life was good... I was justttt fine.

And then our car approached Cerros. We pulled up, we parked, and we opened the doors of the car.

You know the scene in the lion king, in the beginning where Scar sets Simba up for a stampede of hyenas? How it's all quiet and peaceful until suddenly a swarm of them come out of nowhere and attack him almost to death...

We were Simba. The mosquito's were the hyenas.

Except times, like, A HUNDRED. We opened the doors and next thing we knew a black wall of mosquito's swarmed straight into the car!! Naturally my first reaction was to scream like a little girl and run out of the car...little did I know it was WORSE outside. It was just Pastor Angel, Elizabeth, and I and the three of us frantically in a panic scrambled to find our bug spray in our bags while being literally swarmed, covered head to toe, by mosquito's.

While running in panicked circles doing what probably looked like the Irish Jig, I was screaming "What do we do?! Where do we go?! Get me out of here THEY ARE GETTING STUCK IN MY HAIR!!!" Pastor Angel (who is also running around swatting himself like crazy at this point while we are all screaming and spraying bug spray at the bugs like it was mase or something), points to the dock across the little forrest and yells "over there! The strong winds at the end of the dock will blow them away!" and so we ran...
Who would have known that Mosquitos can fly so fast? This was like Jumanji status running through the forest jumping hurdles of tree logs and coconuts with the mosquito's swarming us still following our every move no matter how fast we ran, a black cloud surrounded all three of us head to toe and they were buzzing so loudly in our ears!!! By now I am almost in tears because all I can think about are how many dead mosquito bodies will be tangled up in my hair tonight...I think that may have been the fastest 200 yards I've ever ran in my life.
At the end if the dock we were all panting, I'm practically crying and Elizabeth and I are repeating "NO NO NO WE ARE NOT BRINGING ANYONE HERE EVER LETS JUST LEAVE NOW PLEASE!"
 
So we prepared ourselves this time mentally, physically, and emotionally for the sprint back to the car. 

When we made it to the car (after blood sweat and tears, literally haha!) we opened the doors and the mosquito's filled the whole entire car. So I began screaming "I can't get into the car like that!!! I can't do this!" I am such a baby it's embarrassing. And Angel and Elizabeth were sitting in their bug swamped seats fighting the mosquito's for what seemed like their lives yelling "Get in the car Shannon!! Get in so we can drive away!!" I was shaking and freaking out and I finally got the courage to jump in this van full of what Pastor Angel later told his wife was probably at least 70-80 mosquito's. We had no other choice but to close the doors, blast the AC and drive away while swatting and killing them in every inch of the car as fast as we could. I was squealing and shrieking and we had shoes, napkins, and our own palms smacking every inch of window, seat, ceiling, and part of our body for a good  thirty minutes.  I felt like I was in Fear Factor competing for the final prize.
 
Anyways, you'll be glad to know that we finally made it home and crashed absolutely exhausted (as well as slightly traumatized) after our wonderful trip to Cerros.

I counted how many bites I had when we got here. Fifty one and counting!
 
Well at least I can thank the Lord that I have officially been humbled. I will never complain about an insect again.

Hope you don't have nightmares tonight,
Shannon


P.s.  (excuse the hat haha I put on Elizabeth's big protective sun hat over my curly ponytail so it stood up real tall!)


Elizabeth took this picture of me when we had almost finished killing all the mosquito's today.  This is pretty much how we were all feeling after that adventure.