Porcupine Caterpillar Attack

On Monday of this week I had my first traumatic experience in Ecuador. It was our first day on campus so Helen, Megan, and I decided to walk around for awhile and get to know ESPOL better. We ended up at the library--which is built like a mini-town of sorts with a "street" as the hallway and cute benches. The scenery there is gorgeous--forested mountains and these cool old stone stairs everywhere. 

Anyways, we were heading back down to the main part of campus when I felt a really sharp pain on the inner part of my right forearm. It felt as if all the hairs on that spot were being pulled as hard as possible at once. It kept getting worse and soon red bumps appeared. I was quite concerned at this point, so we decided to ask two girls if they knew what caused it (sidenote: a great way of starting conversations). Obviously everyone knows everything about every insect found in the place they live. Well, they had no clue, "because there are so many bugs in Ecuador." Helen kept talking to them about other things while I continued to look like a lunatic trying to figure out what was going on.

SUDDENLY (can you feel the tension) my OTHER arm started to sting really bad and red bumps appeared in four different places on my inner arm. 

What is happening?! I thought outloud.

Finally, I had the bright idea to look down at my shirt and, lo and behold, what looked like a porcupine caterpillar was crawling along minding his own business. Obviously, I freaked out and tried to flick him off, but he wouldn't go away. AH. While Helen was at this point about a mile away and still running (love her), Megan grabbed a leaf and pulled the bugger (ha) off. It looked like the picture, but had black prickly things, making it much more terrifying.

It's been a few days now, and I still have bumps on my arm that itched really bad for about two days after. I'm sure you all are very concerned. We're still trying to figure out exactly what it was, but the internet has failed us on this front. No bueno. That's really all I have to talk about. 

Buenas noches!

Ashley