One good reason reason to go to Namibia right at the beginning of summer - NO BUGS!! Didn't see a mosquito, a tsetse or much of anything else, bug-wise anyway. Maybe a few ants, ant-lions, a couple of other unknown flies, but nothing that bit. No snakes for that matter either. Probably too dry and hot?

I used 3M ultrathon and mopane flies disappeared...
I will get my dose of Tsetes flies this year in the Selous 06

Mike

tobacco juice..the little bastards hate it!

akpls,

You are lucky for not seeing snakes in Namibia, they are thick with them, especially around any water. I have been there twice, seen a mamba (near a water tank), puff adder(in riverine bush) and spitting cobra on a kopje. Also saw a mole adder in the middle of the hot plains. The adders and the cobra, were eliminated by the tracker, no one got near the mamba.

BigBullet

mopane flies bug you but the tetse's chew you up and spit out the pieces. A word for those going into a fly area the 1st time. Wear hard surfaced shirts. a tee shirt just gives them something to grab onto and punch through. Something I learned through a sad experience which itched for a month latter

Mark,

You forgot to put ticks on your poll!

My Tsetse fly experience wasn't pleasant either. I noticed how much they liked to hide inside the truck cab near the floor and go for your ankles. That meant no bare feet or shorts for me, had to keep the longs on with boots and socks on 100 plus degree days!

Mopane flies are easily kept at bay with a simple mesh head net. Tuck it into your shirt around the neck opening and way you go.

I much prefer the pain of a tsetse bite, or many tsetse bites, to the constant, unrelenting, swarming and buzzing and landing in your ears, up your nose and on your eyeballs until driven to insanity attacks of the mopane flies (which are actually little bees, BTW).

Well, at least one person agrees with me. Those little things drove me frickin batty! There were constantly in my eyes, ears, nose, and would actually try to land on my eye ball. I think they are attracted to fat, sweaty white guys.

Although the trackers were smoking these disgusting home made cigarettes wrapped in newspaper that probably helped them.

Ann, I never saw any ticks, but I did have some giant spiders and a scorpion in my shower, but I just stepped on those. They were nothing compared to the flying biting bugs.

Mopane flies in the blind were making my eyes roll back in my head. I was so frustrated, but didn't want to move or make a sound!

I found tsetse flies the most annoying.

After a few hundred bites, I found myself flinching every time a tsetse landed on me.

George

The small ones almost got me to panic ones, we were tracking a wounded Impala and told to stay behind when the PH and Tracker checked an area, and there were a lot of these buggers there and it took a long time for them to get back.

Tsetse flies might bite, but a little pain never hurt anyone! The zillions of annoying mopane flies trying to enter your nose/mouth/ears/etc on the other hand are much more irritating IMO.

I could tolerate the mopane flies but tsetse flies hurt! The worst, though, I'll have to agree are ticks. The first trip, I got blood poisoning from tick bites and a good chewing out from both my microbiologist wife and the doctor. After that, each time I came back from Africa, the Mrs. made me strip for a tick search while she circled me with a hot wire. Hardly the kind of welcome home I prefer!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by N'gagi:
I think they are attracted to fat, sweaty white guys.[QUOTE]

Here, here. I too vote for the mopane flies.

After seeing my PH (who has fought wounded leopards with his bare hands and only smiled in the face of wounded buffalo and angry cow elephants) go nuts and start beating the truck while jumping out on the move trying to kill a spider... I realize I probably should had taken them more seriously.

Anybody have a bad experience with the fuzzy caterpillars? I never worried much about them but I was told they would give you quite a rash.

Kyler

I had a Nun tell me one time that women "forget" about the pain of childbirth, which is why they keep coming back for more kids.

I find myself forgetting about tsetse flies and mopane bees until touchdown in Africa. Suddenly reminded, the mopane bees are probably the most aggravating.

I can handle a little pain but to have thousands of tiny bee's trying to drink from your eyeball and anywhere else there is the smallest amount of water is pretty annoying to say the least!

All,
I am enjoying your comments on this topic. And as a greenhorn(with a trip to Tanz in the works) to this type of torture, is there not anyway to repel the little bastards?

BigBullet

Western Tanzania exposed my wife and me to the deadly combo of testse flies and mopane bees.
Each can cause insanity through different methods and are preventable.

Mopane bees will drive you crazy if you are idle or trying to remain still. I carried a mesh head net when sitting in a blind or trying to catch 20 winks at lunch break. I also found that Deep Woods Off sprayed on my fingers and liberally rubbed in my ear canal and around my mounth and eyes kept them flying not landing and square dancing on my eyes and ear drum.
Tetse flies bite like a bolt of lightning and make our deer flies seem anemic. They also swarm in numbers and can bite through cotton pants and underpants when you are bent over.
Thick pants and double layers of shirts that are loose so you have an air pocket to reduce bites help. The buggers fly up your pants with deadly results so wearing gaiters to stop this avenue of entry is critical. We sprayed DOOM contunuously in the eddies in the truck to reduce the numbers. I did not have trouble with tetse flies in blinds because I believe they are attracted by movement.

The memories are what Afica is made of!!!!!!!!!
Bugs are a minor inconvenience, remember they helped keep cattle out of many of our premiere hunting areas today.
Robert

Damn Tsetse flys got me more than once. Felt it chewing on my wrist. Solved his problems, then the spot erupted every three weeks for six months, evil stuff came out

The worst part about tsetses is that if you are silly enough to swat 'em, they drop to the ground, shake their heads, yell "Oh, you wanna piece o'me? You t'ink you tough? I gotcher swat right here!" and then come back and bite you again! The only way to make sure that you're "safe" is to pull off their heads and throw the head out one side of the safari car and the body out the other!

quote:

Originally posted by Aspen Hill Adventures:
Mark,

You forgot to put ticks on your poll!

My Tsetse fly experience wasn't pleasant either. I noticed how much they liked to hide inside the truck cab near the floor and go for your ankles. That meant no bare feet or shorts for me, had to keep the longs on with boots and socks on 100 plus degree days!

Mopane flies are easily kept at bay with a simple mesh head net. Tuck it into your shirt around the neck opening and way you go.

Yes, having had tick-bite fever, ticks are a bigger problem in my opinion, too.

However, I voted for Mopane flies in this poll as the tsetse flies do not seem to bother me. In a group of people, I am the person that every mosquito will home in on but, in the same group of people, I am the one the tsetse will not touch - perhaps the makings of an interesting scientific study there!

I didn't find either too bad. You just get so used to the tetses that you swat without thinking about it. To kill them the least troubles some way is to swat then rub. This way you don't need to either hit them hard enough to hurt yourself or see them recover to come back again.

For those tough times in the truck when they seem to key in on the back of your knees and your ankles...Smoke a cigar. Blow the smoke down into the footwell and watch the flies head out the window!

JPK