Costa Rican Hospital

Today was our first day of our “vacation” exploring Costa Rica. We don't have another farm planned until January and are taking this time to do some touristy things.

We caught the first bus out of Cabuya at 7:20am on Saturday, after a extended 3 day goodbye to our new friends that we met at Rainsong. We then connected to a Paquera bus, where you would catch a ferry. So far so good. We got off the bus around 9 and had to find our way to Nicoya. A taxi driver told us we would have to take the ferry to Puntarenas and then another ferry back to Playa Naranjo and there we could catch a bus to Nicoya from there, but it would take us a long time. He told us that he could take us there for $100. Jason told him there was no way we could afford it and we would take the ferry. He was being really persistent and offer to take us for $19. Now this is quite the change in price. We ask him several times, “$19...as in 1, 9?” And he told us yes. After getting in the taxi both Jason and I knew it was a bad idea to have taken the ride. We rode mostly in silence watching the meter run, watching the landscape roll past, thinking about what's going to happen when we would get there... waiting for the punch line. During this time we decided to have our driver take us straight the Parque National Barra Honda which was our final destination instead of Nicoya. (We were only going to Nicoya because it's the closest major city to the park and no buses go directly to the park.) Two hours later we rolled into the hotel right outside the park. The meter read 42 some odd thousand colones which is roughly $80. We unloaded and the driver told us it would 50,000 colones, which is $100. Jason argued and gave him $20. The argument continued, the driver telling us he said, “$90” and Jason saying, “$19,” which of course is what he said. He showed us his meter, which was a total joke. He was trying to charge us $20 more than what his meter read and I forgot to mention the fact that he pulled over and made a couple phone calls on the way, the meter running to entire time. We settled up with him giving him 40,000 colones and he left acting upset, but we know he was pretty damn pleased that he had gotten the gringos to pay him. After this Jason and I made a pack, “No taxis if we can help it.”

The hotel was just down a hill from the park. We carried our things up to the park to see if there was any cheap accommodations there before booking a room at the hotel. There was camping for $2 a head. That's perfect for us because we had to try and make up the $80 we just blew on the cab. We set up camp. Jason and I were actually in really good spirits, laughing about the fact that we knew better and let ourselves be tricked. Jason set up a hammock next to our tent. He tied one end to rope on a tree and the other end he used a metal S hook to hook the rope to the hammock. He climbed in. The hammock sat really low to the ground. I said to him, “I wait to climb in with you but it doesn't look like a good idea.” The hammock was so low to the ground (perhaps 5 inches) that I figured, “I've fallen further down before,” and I climbed in. We both realized that it was going to fall at any moment and we couldn't really get out of it. Suddenly it snapped and the metal hook hit my elbow. Turns out the rope didn't break, the S hook just bent out of shape and the rope slipped off. I was holding my elbow putting pressure on it to make it feel better. It felt like I had hit my funny bone. Jason said, “Well, I don't see any blood...” I removed my hand. My palm had blood in it and the skin around my elbow had swollen up like a misshapen balloon. In the center of the balloon my skin was broken open, not from a cut, but just the force of the metal hitting my arm. I started to panic. The pain hadn't changed, not even enough to cry over. But I had never seen anything like this before. What if I had broken my elbow? What if I end up in a cast and can't do anything on our vacation? I started to cry and Jason calmed me. We walked down to the ranger station. The ranger told us to grab our stuff and they would take us to the hospital. He brought me a menstrual pad because that's all he had to soak up the blood and put a sling around my neck for my arm. My hand was beginning to feel numb in some spots and I believe this was due to the swelling putting pressure on a nerve. My adrenaline rush started to wear off now and I became nausea and developed a cold sweat. I imagine that I looked much worse than my actually condition but this was because I of my panicked state.
We arrived at the hospital and we sat down to wait. The hospital was all concrete, with the look and feel of an asylum only open air. The concrete walls had openings at the top and fans to circulate the air through the room. I was called back within 10 minutes and taken to a room with two bed tables. I explained what happened the best I could in my horrendous Spanglish. The doctor/ nurse that came in spoke a little English. He cleaned up the wound and injected it with some pain killer. The sight of a needle always freaks me out and he put it right in my little swollen arm balloon. While I was waiting for the pain killer to take effect, they rolled another patient into the room. They don't have nearly as much privacy in this hospital as what we expect in the states. I had already seen this man in the open foyer like room that lead to the treating room that I was in now. It looked as though his foot had been crushed. He seemed to be rather calm about it, as he spoke on his cell phone. The doctor/nurse man came back and put a stitch in my small wound. It really didn't need stitches but I guess he figured it was still bleeding, might as well be safe. Then I went to the xray room. The xray was the real reason we had come to the hospital. If I could have been sure that I hadn't chipped, cracked, or shattered my elbow I would have not even gone. But I've never broken anything so I had no idea what to think. The nurse lead me around through the halls. What a strange hospital. I can only describe it as you would imagine a creepy mental asylum. It was all white and concrete. The floors were all different types of broken old tile. Where Jason awaited my return there was a very small narrow outdoor area. It was probably only 6 ft by 30 ft and had a broken TV on a TV stand jetting out from the wall. The white paint was cracked and peeling off the walls in some areas. Mostly where something had been mounted to the wall. The xray room was quite large but very empty. The machine was in the middle with a chair next to the table under it. There was a doorway that lead to the control area, and on the door that I had entered there was a rosary hanging by two pieces of masking tape. I waited for awhile before I met back up with Jason. Another doctor came in and showed me my xray. Everything was fine. He gave some prescriptions for Ibuprofen and an antibiotic. And then he gave us a bunch of instructions, most of which we couldn't understand because he only spoke Spanish. He lead me to another very small room, where I regain my crushed foot companion. He was having his foot dressed by another doctor who spoke English. This doctor told me to keep my arm rested and in the sling.

We left to pay, and opted out of filling the prescriptions. I am already on 2 antibiotics from the dog bite and we have Ibuprofen already. The entire bill only came out to 30,000 colones ($60) which was less than my visit to the pharmacist in regards to the dog bite.

Jason and I decided we would try and walk/hitchhike back to the park. It was about 10-13 miles back to the park which at the time we didn't realize. We were able to catch a ride in a pick up truck for about 3 miles. It took us 3 hours to get back to the park. It had begun to rain but not to terrible hard. We stopped and grabbed a snack size bag of chips. We had only eaten a banana and two granola bars each that day. But we made it back. We were hanging out by the visitor area because of the rain when a girl our age came from out of now where. She was a volunteer and very nice. We found out there we lots of volunteers working at the national park. We went to bed and fell asleep rather soundly under the rain. It was quite the day. Jason and I made another pack to start listening to our gut feeling.