Parade of the bugs

Relax, we´re almost done.

Our hotel is amusing me. It is really quite nice to have a clean room and a comfortable bed, rather than a table with a sheet. At the moment, our hotel is playing host to the Miss Manabi - the province - pageant in the lobby. I just interrupted a photo shoot to get back into the hotel... got some pretty catty stares as I walked by in my muddy pants and field boots. Maybe I splashed some of my filth on them. Take that, makeup caked monsters!

We have been trying to be productive, but at times I think we need a satellite view. Maybe Superman can carry me around to find standing water. Finding it from the road is quite a challenge. Today, we drove almost all day and didn´t find more than 2 ponds in which to dip. What a drag.

However, we did find a hotspot of Anopheles mosquitoes, just north of here. I pinned a bunch and we aspirated more this morning as they tried to bite us. Good thing they prefer to bite Julio!!

...Just kidding, Julio!

Yesterday we were doing our usual cheap traveller thing, cooking on a little camp stove in our room - very safe indeed - when inexplicably, our pot started to smoke. It was actually clean at the time, so it must be a defect with the pot. We decided with a week of fieldwork left, we are going to forego buying a new pot and just eat in restaurants for dinners. Besides, we are staying in a family-run guesthouse in Guayaquil... so they might figure out that we are cooking in our room... and it would not be good for us.

Tomorrow, we are off to Guayaquil. There are lots of areas in the vicinity to work, and we plan to work until Sunday.

I´m pretty exhausted, so I´ll be glad to be done the fieldwork!