Or, Buses and Butts
Well, I had an interesting couple of days there. Packing up and leaving Dominical went off
without a hitch. Everything fit in my
luggage, despite the addition of a towel and a hammock, and the bus came on
time, and away we went. Got to Quepos,
confirmed my anticipated 3 hour wait for the next bus, and settled myself in a
close by restaurant to each brunch and read.
Round about 25 minutes before my bus should have left
Quepos, I wondered back to the station to wait.
And wait.
And wait…
Late buses make me a little panicky. I always assume I’ve missed it, or got the
time wrong, or something. So, when the
damn bus hadn’t even shown up 15 minutes after it was supposed to leave… I’m an
unhappy gal. Went up to the gal at the
ticket window (who only spoke Spanish) and managed to gather from her that the
bus would be 10-15 more minutes, and that something had been “muy malo (sp?)”
or “very bad”. I thought maybe the bus
had stalled or something I wasn’t sure, I was just glad to hear it was
coming. Finally showed up probably 35
minutes after 1pm (when it was supposed to leave) and took off 45ish minutes
late.
Whee!
Now, for the fun part…
About an hour into the trip from Quepos to Puriscal I come
to the conclusion that what had been “muy malo” was the road. I figured this out about the time the bus
got stuck in the mud going up a hill.
You see, there had been rain recently, and there had been roadwork in
that area, so the roads were more dirt than gravel, and that didn’t go well. Now, these roads are sketchy under the best
of circumstances, and every time to get on one I kind of resign myself
to the possibility that we’ll end up going off a cliff, but this time, it
seemed really quite likely, as the getting stuck was preceded by much slipping
and sliding around.
I was right.
We got towed up the hill by a big tractor like thing the
road crew was using. This went alright.
Ish. Until we came to a turn in the road.
Which was banked. The we just
slid right off the road. And would have
just slid right off the cliff, if there hadn’t been a couple of handy trees.
Fun times.
But! Those trees
were there, and eventually, after much consultation and discussion, he road
crew and our driver figured out a way to tow us back onto the road and up the
hill. (watching these discussions was fun since I couldn’t understand
them. Fun to caption them in my
head. “So, what we need to do here is
get the bus back up on the road” “No, really, I couldn’t have guessed…”
Lol)
There was some more slippage after that, but we remained on
the road, and I lived to write another blog post! Of course, I got to Puriscal 1.5 hours late and missed my
ride. Could have bused to the farm, but
fuck it, I got a taxi. I was done with
buses for the day!
And then there was today (the 15th).
Another “fun” day.
About 5 days ago I noticed something that I took at first to
be a pimple. Then it got bigger, and I
thought it was a bid pimple, like, the biggest I’d ever had. But, back at the farm, I’d heard too many
horror stories about Torselos (fly maggots) and one of the girls actually had
one on the back of her thigh… So I did not try to pop this pimple, incase it
was a Torselo, because if you kill one, you get a horrible infection. So I left it be, and hoped it would just go
away.
No such luck.
In fact, it got worse.
Enough worse that I began to think it really well might have
been a Torselo. I was in much
trepidation. But then the swelling kept
getting worse, and bigger, and redder, and it got very warm, which seemed to me
like it could be the harbinger of an infection… But there was no handle clinic
in Dominical, and figured, if it didn’t
go away or got much worse, I’d just go to the same Dr. in Puriscal that I saw
for my Kidney infection.
Well, I bet you can guess where I was today.
At the doctor.
Oh, and I forgot to mention the best part of this mystery
affliction. It is on my right ass
cheek. Like, nearly in the crack of my
ass. So you can bet that made the bus
rides fun, and the doctor’s visit ignominious.
Turns out it was an abscess. Don’t ask, I don’t know how or why it happened. And, if you are at all squeamish, I’d say
stop reading here, and just now I’ll be fine.
The next bit is gross.
So yeah, had to get it lanced. Did opt for the local anesthesia, which I was glad for, but the
multitude of shots in my butt cheek hurt like the dickens in and of
themselves. Then, out came the scalpel!
I’m kind of glad I couldn’t watch this process. The doctor must have spent 30 minutes cutting me and squeezing
prodigious amounts of blood and puss out of me. Apparently there were like 2 capsules of pus, one deeper than the
other? (her English wasn’t perfect, but that was my understanding). I, of course, I was laying on my stomach,
and there was enough blood she wasn’t able to catch and sop up that I was
bloody all down my thighs etc. And I
guess the puss was... thick. So very,
very, very gross. Eventually she
thought she’d gotten all she could out, put an antibiotic cream on me, bandaged
me up, and sent me off to pick up a prescription for antibiotic pills as
well. I really hope she got all or
close to all the pus, because if she didn’t, the antibiotics could make the
abscess, well, her word was “explode” but I’m figuring she meant, like,
rupture, or maybe erupt? Anyway you
word it, I do not want it to happen. It already feels a little
better, though still pretty swollen, and still hot to the touch. Still awfully tender too, so sitting is
still interesting.
So yeah, those were my exciting couple of days. Safe and sound at the new place, and I will
write more about that later. For now,
time to take my wounded ass to bed.
