Local Curiosities...

In Latin america, there is a well known and mysterious method of keeping flies at bay. It's not an electric zap light or a insecticide spray! No, It is a totally non-toxic product of latino ingenuity ! what could it be, you ask yourself outloud??? "Water bags" or "bags of water" (yeah, the name is rather anticlimactic, but stay with me on this.)! It's an unspoken trick that we've grown up doing here, it's understood and not, but part of the backdrop of everyday life in our culture, that's why we find it hard to explain how or why it works to a foreigner (who usually think it's some type of exotic drink in a bag...). it's a simple and effective repelent; a clear plastic bag filled with water (some people use clear plastic bottles too), with a string wrapped around it (to seal it, water balloon style), then it's hung in the place you want to keep clear of flies. How does it work? After some questions to different local folks (mostly asked by my North American boyfriend, who realized quite by accident that it was not "agua de pipa" dangling above his head, an embarrassing story for another time...curiosity almost killed the gringo?), the answers went from magical means to dumbfounded glares ("if you don't know you never will, gringito"),the most accepted and logical answer seems to be: when the flies hover around the water bag they see a distorted reflection of themselves, and react like a superstitious 4 year old child in a fun house mirror; "Big ugly fly wants to eat me...hmmm, looks kinda familiar.....fly away!!!

My boyfriend and I decided to test this out immediately at our campsite and to his surprise, found it to worked...until naughty 'Carablancas' (monkeys) mistook it for agua de pipa and consecrated our tent with it when they realized they were duped (true story). So the next time the flies are in full force and in your face before reaching for the "off" or that chemically soaked candle of unknown origin try the Latin American "Water Bag" (really gotta work on that name though...). Let us know your results!
Pura Agua!

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