Trek Dirty to Me: 50 days until it's off to bear country, but all I'm thinking about are the bugs.

There are few things in this world that get to me quite like mosquitos and ticks. As a child, I recall the horror of finding a tick on my body. As a 37 year old man, I recall the horror of finding a tick on my body. I can sleep through pretty much anything. I have been living in front of three clubs here in Goa for the last six weeks. They go full body thump bass until 4am every day, yet I can sleep right through them now. You know what I have never been able to sleep through? The sound of a single mosquito in my room, buzzing its little asshole buzzing bullshit, as it waits for me to let my guard down long enough to fill up on my blood.

I have had friends and significant others who have contracted the following illnesses, courtesy of these two assholes of the forest (and jungle and swamp and once even a desert island): Malaria, Yellow Fever, Dengue Fever, Japanese Encephalitis, and Lyme Disease. I am not a fan.

The Appalachian Trail pretty much goes through the heart of Lyme Disease country. The trail itself is pretty much an overlay over the hot zone for contracting the bacterial infection from shitty dickhead ticks. Ticks, I might add, that can be as small as the pinhead of a needle. So what is the plan?

I will not be slathering DEET all over my body as I did in Africa, but I do think that I have a fairly solid plan to cope with these menaces.

Firstly, I will have all of my garments that touch the world treated in-house by Insect Shield. This treatment is highly effective and gives my clothes about 70 launderings of effectiveness against my nemeses.

Next, for the fleshy parts, I will be using Sawyer Picaridin Insect Repellent lotion packets (thanks Zach at The Trek). Each packet will cover me for a day of hiking and also keep away biting flies…which apparently will be a new threat to my sanity.

Finally, I will be covering the fuck up whenever humanly possible and pumping my body full of vitamins B12 and B6. The vitamins will keep me smelling like death to biting insects. I will be taking in plenty from my multivitamins and diet. And I will gladly wear tights and long sleeves and a beekeeper’s hat (if I must) whenever I damn well please, as a proper cock block to these predatory fiends.

-AJ

Seriously! Fuck this tickhead!

---