Sámara Sun, Sand, and… Shattered Plans

Vacation is the absolute worst time to get hurt! It’s made even worse when you get hurt on the first day of vacation. You’ve made all these plans, paid all this money, you have so many expectations, and now you just have to deal with this injury in unfamiliar surroundings. I live here, so you know this crazy story is not about me. Unfortunately, when my cousins came to visit me in Sámara, Costa Rica, their vacation did not go as planned.

To the beach!

One of my cousins volunteers for the US Government in a small town near San José, CR. It’s in the mountains, which makes it a much cooler temperature than here on the beach. His brother flew in for a visit and they both wanted some time near the ocean and nature. What better place than Sámara to see me!?! I have all the ocean you could ever want. Plus, I have a discount on a shuttle that they can use to get here, so they don’t have to bus the entire way. The bridge (Puente La Amistad de Taiwán) is still out, so bussing here is difficult at the moment.

They both made it safely, and we headed out in the rain to a lovely soda on the beach. The one cousin lives in CR, so he is kind-of getting sick of typical Tico food, but I’m still in love with it. And his brother is new to it, so I figured a soda was a good start. Luckily, it was open! We had a wonderful meal while watching the large Pacific Ocean waves crash against the beach. After, we went to look for crocodiles in the lagoon. None seen. Sigh.

The next day was filled with more rain. It is the green season, after all. Unfortunately, the ocean was pretty rough, so we spent the day wandering the town, catching up, and looking for critters. The rain finally stopped so we could spend some time in their hotel’s amazingly lovely swimming pool. I’m a huge fan of swimming pools! Some really wonderful tropical landscaping surrounds this one, making you feel like you are in the forest. Which is kind of true because we caught our first glimpse of the local howler monkeys way up in the trees.

Someone call a doctor!

I left the cousins to head back to my place for a shower and some dinner. However, not long after getting home (and halfway through making dinner), my phone rang. One of my cousins had cut his foot in the shower and needed a bandage. No worries. I grabbed my first aid kit and headed down to their hotel. My other cousin (let’s call him US Cousin ‘cause he lives in the USA) let me in the front gate and we headed up.

Once we get there, I realize this is bigger than a shaving nick. The owners of the hotel are working together to clean up the significant amount of blood throughout the room, along with all the pieces of glass in the shower. My first thought is that one of the fancy glass shower doors must have broken, but the structure looks intact. The younger cousin (let’s call him CR Cousin) was using a pair of dark undershorts to keep pressure on his wounded ankle.

He didn’t want to get blood on any of the fancy hotel towels, which is very considerate of him. One owner let me know that she had called the town doctor and he would be available in an hour. Is it that bad that he needs a doctor!?! She had brought up some bandage material so he could wrap it in case he needed to travel anywhere for care. Then she went back to cleaning up the crazy amount of broken glass in the shower.

What happened!?!

All this is happening while CR Cousin is on the phone trying to get ahold of his US Government Emergency contact. You may have heard about the dreaded healthcare system that exists in the States. Perhaps you might think that it couldn’t make its way into a foreign country such as Costa Rica, but you would be wrong. You see, CR Cousin has to get pre-approved by his employer for medical care before their insurance will pay for the procedure. The government has contracts at specific facilities and they might have to send him to one of those. WTF!

There is talk of sending him to Liberia, which is a two-hour taxi ride away. But it’s not two hours of safe daytime driving. It’s two hours of extremely unsafe nighttime driving. All dark back roads, blind corners, and nocturnal creatures to avoid. They do not recommend you drive around here after dark unless you’re very familiar with the roads. I will pay for the doctor myself if they try to send him to Liberia! I might not have a choice in the matter though, as these are his employers and he has to do what they say. Ugh.

Okay, here’s what happened. CR Cousin was in the shower when he went to adjust the shower head and accidentally bumped the glass soap shelf with his elbow. The plastic clip holding the glass broke and the entire thing crashed to the shower floor, slicing into his ankle pretty deep. He now needs stitches. And it is up to the US Government to decide his fate for the night. Is he quickly getting some stitches or is he getting a taxi to Liberia and staying overnight?

What will it be?

He is still on the phone, so I decide to wrap up that ankle with some sterile gauze because this could take a while. That’s done. And we wait. The shower has been cleaned of all glass and the owner assures me that she will be replacing all of those glass soap holders with plastic ones in all the rooms. They are very pretty, but an immense risk in the shower. I think that is a good idea. She also mentions that her husband can give CR Cousin a ride to the local clinic if he needs it. She’s so nice!

She leaves and CR Cousin gets a text from someone higher up the governmental food chain. They want a photo of the wound. Why? He’s not lying. Why would he lie? We unwrap his ankle and snap a photo. I decided not to post that here. You’re welcome! Then they want a photo further away. Ah, they want the entire foot in the photo so that they can assess how big the wound is. This is getting weird. They tell him he needs stitches. We know!!!

This goes on for a couple of hours. Finally, they say that CR Cousin can see the only doctor here in Sámara. But… they have to talk to the doctor on the phone before he does anything or they won’t pay for it. This is one of those doctors who makes house calls, but he said we should meet him at the clinic instead because that is where all his equipment is. Lucky for us, the clinic is about two blocks away and CR Cousin can walk just fine.

So hungry

At this point, all of us are starving. US Cousin was sent out earlier to get food for both brothers. I abandon CR Cousin to go eat at my place (sorry!). That means the rest of this story is all secondhand, and I hope I get it right. CR Cousin runs into his brother as he is walking to the clinic and gets some much needed pizza that he scarfs down while waiting for the doctor to arrive and open the clinic and get setup.

Turns out this doctor is a hoot! He has his young son with him to help out. So he tells my cousin about how this is the second call of the day. That morning, he was taking his son surfing on his day off when he saw someone come out of the ocean with a large slash across his face. He walked over to give assistance. The family said that they need to call a medic. He lets them know that he is the one who would be taking that phone call as he is the only medic in town. May as well bypass the call and get straight to treating the wound.

He had to call off his surfing day with his son to stitch that guy’s face up. Made a joke that with this added call and his son helping him; he was going to owe his kid some ice cream for the trouble. He also seemed amused that he had to talk to someone on the phone before working on my cousin’s ankle. “I’ll talk to Obama if I have to!” The call lasted about two minutes, described the wound, that it would need stitches and my cousin would need antibiotics. After clearing the type of antibiotics, single-injection or 10-day oral, handed the phone back to CR Cousin.

So much for an ocean vacation

The doctor must have convinced the person on the phone because they let him go ahead with the needed stitches. “It’s a few stitches. On a leg. What’s the big deal?” He covered the wound for the rainy walk home and sent my cousin off with very direct instructions to only keep it covered for the night. After that, no covering it, no ointments, no ocean, no pool. He said he knew my cousin was here for the ocean, but that dream was over for the next ten days. No ocean.

Well, crap monkeys! Pretty much every plan I have for them involves water. I walk on the beach twice a day, but this is the rainy season so there is only so far you can go before you have to cross a stream or a river. Even at the lowest of tides, the river is still ankle high. All the boat tours require some walking in the ocean to get to a small boat that takes you to the big boat. No dry docks around here.

Did I mention it’s the green season? That means that poor guy is going to have to bring an umbrella everywhere trying to keep that ankle dry. This is going to be difficult. Plus, his hotel has this amazing swimming pool that he can no longer enjoy. This is BS! I feel genuinely bad for him. What can you do? Sometimes people get hurt on vacation. Now he is forced to actually take a break and lounge around whether he wants to or not.

What to do?

So what is there to do for over a week in Sámara if you can’t get your ankle wet and you don’t like to consume massive amounts of alcohol while lounging at a beach bar? Not a whole lot, really. Even hiking around here this time of year requires river crossings. We are going to have to get creative. I took my un-injured cousin to go check out the tide pools during low tide, and he seemed to enjoy that.

You can get to the tide pools without trekking through brackish water by taking the road, but it is a long, hot hike. I talked my injured cousin into it, making sure we brought water and looked for crocodiles as we crossed the bridge. None seen. It was fun chatting with him as we walked. We managed to make it all the way there without getting wet. Go me!

The tide pools were tons of fun and we saw so many creatures. A few horses even came down to drink from a stream popping out of the sand. And you would not believe the number of tiny hermit crabs we saw! I could barely walk around, there were so many! Walking on the lava rock that makes up the tide pools was made easier by shoes, but I managed to pickup a few new blisters on my feet. I hate breaking in new sandals.

Let’s play a game

The rest of the week was spent enjoying card games and six-dice on my amazing balcony and eating all kinds of wonderful foods. The Saturday Market was a hit for one cousin, but not the other. We all got super lucky one day when a group of howler monkeys made their way down the Guanacaste and palm trees (right next to my balcony!) into the mango tree to enjoy some delicious fruit. It never gets old seeing monkeys use their prehensile tail to swing from branch to branch!

I did get to use their pool a couple more times with US Cousin, which was fun. Plus, we went swimming in the ocean on his last day as the surf wasn’t too bad. But there was some guilt that CR Cousin couldn’t join us. I was worried before they got here that our large age gap would prevent us from enjoying each other’s company, but my fears were unfounded. The youngest of the two was born after I graduated from college, after all. How crazy is that!?! No need to worry as we got along great and had many wonderful conversations.

Both young men made it back to their respective homes without major issues. CR Cousin didn’t get an infection in his ankle so he gets to keep it. No dying! Now it’s time to get some much needed cleaning done. Every single thing in my apartment has a thin layer of mold on it, despite all the fans I have going 24/7. It’s just so humid here. I have to wipe down my walls with vinegar! Adulting is hard!