Fun fact #27 about Costa Rica: Clean even small scrapes and cuts thoroughly or you will get a shot in the butt.

1/12/12

I can only laugh as I sit in the waiting area of a hospital that resembles a barn with a plywood room built in one corner. My left foot and ankle have more than doubled in size and with three days of riding left on the trek, I finally considered that I was going to have to sit it out.

Quick update: After finishing my class in San Jose and spending Christmas with  family friends in a farm town just past Guapiles, I knew that I needed to get out of the city. I spent a couple weeks in the city looking for jobs and met a guy who had just finished volunteering in Monteverde on a coffee plantation. This sounded like a great idea- play with a machete and learn Spanish- but when I went back to my school to inquire about the cost of this venture, I was a bit disheartened. Roughly $1000 a month would cover room/board and Spanish lessons. Considering that most of my time would be spent working, I didn’t exactly think this was the best plan. Now determined to get out of the city and do something with my hands again, I scoured the internet for different volunteer jobs and other various ways that I could extend my stay here. I looked into WWOOFing and Workaway and found an opportunity to work with horses and take week long treks from the mountains in Puriscal to Playa Hermosa with Barking horse farm (barkinghorsefarm.com). The owner and I got in touch over the course of a day, the very next day I took the bus out to visit and “try out” and then returned to the city get my things and head back! What an answered prayer (and timely too)!

Just four days prior I was all jazzed about my new machete and went out to climb some trees with one of the kids on the farm to get some pipas (green coconuts that have a semi-sweet juice inside). Turns out I’m not the best at climbing this variety of tree and more so groped and squirmed up it than what would qualify as anything efficient. Once up as high as I could get I clung on as long as possible while swinging the machete around in an amateur fashion. With only the smallest fraction left of the a vine holding eight pipas dangling just overhead, I couldn’t maneuver any way that would allow me to complete the cut. Succeeding in nothing but spilling the precious nectar from two of them, I finally lost my grip and slid down. Repeating this cycle several times and sliding down each time with my legs wrapped “Indian style"* around the tree and hugging it at the same time, left scratches and scrapes on my chest, arms and legs. None of these looked in any way threatening, though. I washed and treated each with ointment and then thought nothing of them.

Even three days into my first trek, after one of the guests who happened to be a nurse said my ankle looked bad, I never correlated the fever I was experiencing to this small scrape on my ankle and assumed I must have been catching something. After a day of rest and some borrowed antibiotics prescribed to another guest for a tick bite, I rode one more day and was finally convinced to get it checked out when it swelled so massively. Speaking poor Spanish with the night crew at an E.R. is not the most forgiving field to practice on. The nurse was very inpatient (sorry, I know that was bad, but I couldn’t resist) and was not fond of repeating her questions. When I finally was passed on to the doctor, his initial reaction was to have me stay in a hospital for three days on an I.V. After explaining that this was not possible as we were in the middle of the trek, the nurse, I’m sure with great pleasure, administered my first ever shot in my right nalga. Those suckers hurt! I was then sent off with ten days worth of hardcore antibiotics, anti-inflammatory pills and a solution of ammonium acetate. All of this was free of charge, thank you CAJA (CR’s public health care system)!

By God, we got those pipas though.

I wrote this while hammock-bound, NOT drinking beer and washing my ankle with pool chemicals. Sorry for the long delays. I have many stories written down and I will do my best to transfer them to digital format in a more timely manner!

*I apologize to any Trail West staff (current or former) that may have been angered by my non-P.C. usage, when it clearly should have been “criss-cross apple sauce”. 

"Rabid beasts and my first lesson up in flames (but not in that order)."

12/4/11

The end of the first week of class had come and all that stood between a three day beach trip and myself was the first of three mini lessons I would teach before having to plan and execute a full blown class (actually, a week straight of them!). In reality, I wasn't too worried about it, after all it was only a “how to”, which meant simply teaching associated vocabulary and no grammar rules (etc) on the topic of my choice.  My topic, which I was pretty pumped about, was how to roast a marshmallow, a plan derived from my limited list of available prop resources, i.e. things in my room. It also included igniting a fire with my camping stove inside the classroom, which has to get you some bonus points right? With my lesson mostly set and my idea approved, I slept in until about 10:00, which left me with about 3 hours to finish planning, eat breakfast, buy camping fuel (since I emptied my bottle prior to flying afraid of airport difficulties) and marshmallows and print out my extra copies. Very doable, but a bit of a narrow window to leave myself. I finish things at the house and purchase the items on the way to school. The gas, from a True Value of all places, is “Coleman camping fuel”, but says nowhere on the can that it is the white gas I specifically need and costs $30 U. S. a gallon! Far too committed at this point, I buy it begrudgingly and hustle to the school. With around 45 minutes left, I print my copies and light the stove outside for practice, not knowing if/how this mystery fuel will burn. It works, but flames up much higher than usual. I get it under enough control and decide to proceed with my plans.

When my turn arrives, the beginning is shaky. “They’re blowing through my vocab!” I thought. My lesson has to last twenty minutes. The pace quickly shifts and several unplanned words are questioned, one being much harder to convey than predicted (“slightly”). Now without going too far into it, we have to teach this material without giving any answers; it’s almost like every charades-esque game you’ve ever played. We must make the students figure things out with only associations and other tools on the spot. So after taking far too long to get through this process, I finally give them a quick practice assignment and cherish a second to breathe. Unfortunately as they finish, I get the “4 minute” warning and I haven’t gotten to the fire yet! To make a long story short (I know, not my style) I confabulate a plan to combine my last three exercises into one. After a brief, non verbal plea to the teacher observing, to let me proceed with the activity despite the time, I “act out” the answers to the how to scramble exercise as the students read them aloud. I notice a panicked look in the observer’s eyes as I grab the mallows and see that the placemat I used as a barrier between the stove and the chair, on which it is sitting, is also on fire! “Not to worry”, I calmly lied, and splashed some water under the stove to douse the unwanted flames. Somewhere in the middle of the instructions as the students were just getting their mallow over the stove, time was finally called. So close! Not the smoothest performance, but not a terrible first attempt. (Rabid beast portion soon to follow…)

El primero dia de me adventura.

Returning from the abyss of my thoughts, I realize that I’m casually watching birds hop around on the carpet right next to me in the end of gate “B” in the Denver International Airport. Replaying in my head the events of the morning, I am suddenly engulfed in the contemplation of whether or not my bag had been checked at the first airport. After determining that it in fact was (as I do currently hold the slip verifying it) I am able to suppress the anxiety to a level that will allow me to get back to writing.

                I don’t know that causes me to run consistently late for every flight I take. Perhaps my first several being delayed instilled an “oh, I’ll make it” attitude, but it has resulted in my not being able to recall the last time I didn’t arrive just in time to walk straight onto the plane (in my most recent mishap I was so tardy that there was not even a check-in attendant to take my ticket). This time, however, I was an hour and a half early and mildly concerned even that would be insufficient, assuming there would be extra or at least separate security for international flights.

                The security line was pretty long when I walked in the door, but not enough to cause alarm. San Antonio’s airport isn’t too large, so I figured only a few lines were open. I made my way to the front of the baggage check line and began the check in process. When a screen came up requesting a passport scan, I foolishly, despite a glass, much more scanner-esque in appearance device above the screen, tried to scan it in the ticket dispenser. Upon typing in my information instead, a screen asking that I present my return travel plans came next. “No problem”, I thought and produced my bus ticket purchased solely for the purpose of obtaining a tourist visa and entry into Costa Rica. But an attendant was not available and in less than a minute, the screen returned to the start menu. Realizing precious security line time was being wasted, I quickly began again, this time conquering the passport scanner mind games. When I successfully presented the papers to the employee behind the scale, she informed me that I would have to check in with the connecting flight line as they would be the ones taking me out of the country. Determined not to let this fluster me, I hurried down to the next terminal and discovered a longer line. Suppressing the thought of missing my first leg of a series of three flights, which unbelievably would take me from San Antonio, to Denver, to Houston to San Jose, Costa Rica (still a bit frustrated that the airline would not allow me to simply drive to Houston and skip the first two flights of this now thirteen hour day), I stood patiently and eventually arrived at the check-in desk.

                I quickly achieved the “assistance needed” screen as I am now the check in master, and again had to start from scratch before I could acquire an audience. When I eventually did, I was, of course, instructed to check in with the previously failed airline. Now I begin to worry. I quickly explain my situation and am escorted back across and to the front of the line. After one more round of beat the clock rendering me that weird, twitchy, nervous guy mumbling to himself at the counter, I was manually checked in and instructed to proceed to the security line, not customs, which was now an obscure curly “L” shape and less than an hour was left to get through and to my gate.

                My bags made it through and the metal detector didn’t even beep when I walked though, success! “Please step over here, sir,” the man says as I try to retrieve my bags, shoes, belt etc. “You’ve been randomly selected for screening.” Now set aside the ticking clock for a moment. I’ve been x-rayed, patted down and subject to other forms of screening, but this was an odd one. I was instructed to stand in a roped off box hold my hands in a very particularly suppinated fashion and a sort of swab was wiped on them, taken to a machine and pressed down on a sensor. I can only assume that this is some nonsensical method in which they hope the selected screen-ee will crack and scream out, “I have drugs!” or “I’m smuggling candied pecans to Central America.” Further proving my theory, when I inquired as to what this test would check for, I was told, “Lots of stuff.” Now I could have responded with any number of smart-ass remarks exclaiming how “faincy” that sounded, but it had been quick and painless, not to mention there was a flight to catch (and now the lucrative opportunities of candied pecan smuggling trade were foremost in my mind).  

                I am proud to report that after all this build up and stress, the plane left about thirty minutes late and wasn’t even boarding yet when I arrived. “Welcome to international travel”, I thought. If things can be this mixed up at my local airport, where business is conducted in my native tongue, I can’t wait to experience the fabulous screw-ups and headaches that await me!