Excitement

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 15^th).

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.