Nicaraguan Vampires

I'm glad I didn't read this article while I was living in Nicaragua. My "shanty" had "gaps big enough for the flying mammals to sneak through during the night," and sneak through they did. Ten minutes after my lights would go off, I'd hear my visitor swoop in and fly around. But I thankfully had a mosquito net and besides the droppings I cleaned up every morning, the bats in my house weren't too much of a bother.

The night before this picture was taken, however, was a bit less comfortable (check out the bat hanging above me). I had to sleep with my sleeping bag over my head and awoke several times through the night when the bat would fly so close I could feel it's wings hit me. There's a lot of things I don't miss about Nicaragua.



The standard Nicaraguan technique for getting rid of bats involved wrapping a clove a garlic in a red cloth and hanging the cloth from the roof. I was also told to smash garlic into the roof in the form of a cross. Neither of these worked. Go figure.