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The Monkey Flea Massacre

July 25th, 2022

Bocas Del Toro, Panama

You know that feeling when you are so paranoid about bug bites, that you convince yourself you can feel the tiny feet of the bugs walking along your skin 24/7. When you have so many bites, you can no longer tell which ones are new, and you’re too the point where your legs looks as if they were massacred. Covered from head to toe in scabbed, red, itchy bites that now look as if they are second skin. 

Well, if not, let me just advise against never, ever getting monkey fleas. You’re probably thinking, seriously… monkey fleas? But unfortunately, I’m not joking. It all started when we moved from our downtown Airbnb out to the stunning Bluff Beach, which is about a 30min quad ride out of town. We were ecstatic to get away from the constant bustle and noise of downtown Bocas and have the tranquility of the ocean waves waking us up and lulling us to sleep each day. With a taxi full of luggage’s following us, since it seems we packed a plethora of unnecessary things and really overpacked (check out our packing guide for Bocas here), we made our way out to the new place, sporting our new ATV’s. When we reached the house, we were in awe. A stunning beach front property surrounded by dense Caribbean jungle and massive open-air bedrooms and balconies overlooking the ocean. To say the least, our expectations were blown away and the host’s answer that there were very little bugs to my quickly asked question made it even better. 

Her only warning was that we would often be graced with the presence of a local Capuchin monkey who liked the inhabit the deck chairs and couches and could be quite a nuisance. We didn’t think much of this, and me being a huge fan of all thing’s animals, I couldn’t wait to see this guy up and close. To our surprise – they weren’t joking. We were awoken in the morning to a small white-faced monkey – who looked like a fricken teddy bear sitting on our couch.

Unfortunately, our high hopes of a relaxing semi bug-free stay were quickly washed down the drain as over the next 3 days we were truly eaten alive. Each of those mornings we woke up to anywhere from 30-50 new bites covering our legs, butt, inner thighs, and arms. They were these tiny little red bumps, that at the time we assumed were most likely bed bugs.

We tried our best not to panic but the paranoia snuck in, and we then began to assume that every part of the house, our clothes, and the couches were infested with bed bugs because it seemed that no matter what we did (change locations in the house, where clothes covering our skin, bug repellent, etc.) we were still getting torn apart. These weren’t just any normal looking bites; they were little red bumps that showed up in a line of cluster along our skin. I started wearing socks and what have become my favorite long lounge pants thinking it would keep the bugs away but to our surprise it only made it worse.


After a grueling 3 days, insanely itchy skin, and over 200 bites on our bodies we reached out to the landlord and informed them that we thought there might be bed bugs. They were very responsive and immediately had a fumigator come and check it out. They sprayed the whole house down and did a quick* inspection and informed us that there weren’t any bed bugs and we should be fine.

So we once again stayed at the house and once again woke up in the morning to even more bites – these in even worse areas than before (I’m sure you can use your imagination here). We reached back out to the host and yet again the exterminator came back and did another inspection. We left to go surfing and while hanging out on our friends boat we received the text message: “Hi there, so good and bad news. Turns out it’s not bed bugs, but Monkey Fleas from the Capuchin monkey.” To say the least we were shocked. It turned out that between guest visits the monkey had been living in the house – truly living his best life and had so deeply infested the house that it needed 3 rounds of deep fumigation.