Thursday, June 30, 2011

An electrifying experience !!

Wow it's been a while since I have posted - no internet access for a while. Let's see where to do I start?
On thursday afternoon Colin arrived in roatan and we spend some time exploring the island on his behalf. Friday was our last day in clinic so we have the last week to explore and have times to ourselves. We all can not believe that clinic is over and we are abut to come home in a few days.

On Saturday we all headed off to mainland Honduras by Ferrie. We had been warned several times that this is a rocky ride and they were right. it's a tiny Ferrie that offers both first class and regular class, we decided we should slurge and try first class seeing as it was only 5 dollars more than regular class and it is probably the only time we I'll ever be able to afford first class. As we made our way to the Ferrie we loaded past all the "regular class " people with smug looks on our faces only to discover that first class is upstairs and air conditioned but the worst place on the boat for motion sickness.


Waiting to board the Ferrie


The old Ferrie!!!!








Waiting for our taxi in la ceiba.

Once we arrived in La Ceiba we caught a taxi to our accommodation, which was an Eco lodge in the mountains of the Pico Bonita rainforest. Everything here is wetter than wet you almost feel suffocated from the humidity. Once arrived we discovered that we were basically staying in a tree house, it was very very cool.

















View from our room in the tree house


After getting settled we headed out for our first excursion - white water rafting the Congrejal river!


The Congrejal river!




Now if you remember from my last blog you might recall my blind Australian white water rafting tour - well this one pretty much takes the cake. I was pretty nervous to raft again since my last blind rafting experience, but the three tag alongs talked me into it, so with reserve I foraged on. It started off okay, some small hikes to get to the river followed by a small swim, then we had to climb a fairly large rock just so we could jump off of it, they had to attach us to a safety harness for climbing. I made it about half way up were I lost my grip and basically was just swinging against the rock scrambling to find my footing (thank goodness for the safety harness) while the poor guide had to heave me up the side of the rock until I could find a place to grab on. I did manage to make it the rest of the way with only two bleeding knees, I was glad that i was not the only one who needed a little extra heave hoe up the damn thing.


Dan scaling the wall





Success at the top



Once up after a lot of hesitation we had a 4meter jump off into the warm rushing water below. So here I thought we were at least done with the cliff jumping, but no no we were only just getting started - we then made our way to yet another cliff which the guides called a "full commitment jump" hmmm what could that mean? As we scaled our next boulder the rain started to pour down making the rocks EXTREMELY slippery (exactly what this "sure footed" sportmans needed) and as we approached our next jump I realized that "full commitment" meant run as fast as you can ( along the now extremely slipper boulder) and jump. It was obvious if you didn't run fast enough or slipped on the rock there was certain doom waiting for you at the bottom. So away we started. Ashley and Colin of course went first and made it look easy, I was holding back working up my courage and Dan went next. He started off with a full bodied sprint then his rental shoes failed him at the last second as he slipped and fell and road the rock down like a water slide! All of our faces were held in an exclaimed frozen expression as we watched him execute this ballet. In the end he came up fine with nothing more than a sore bottom, this actually helped me because I knew if I fell I would be okay and I made it off the edge safely.

As the rain picked up the weather turned into a full fledged electrical storm which made rafting kinda neat - the thunder was enhanced as it echoed through the valley, the first time we had a good loud thunder I was sure it was a rock slide starting but the guide kindly told me to clm down it's just thunder!

Into the raft we headed to start our class 3 and 4 rapids. I of course am stuck in the boat with ashley who wants nothing more than to flip the raft in a rapid so I threatened her with her life. The first 4 or 5 five rapids were fine slightly exilierating and scary at times but I still had both contacts so I was feeling pretty good at this point. Then came the biggest of all rapids, it was known to be quite dangerous especially since it had been pissing rain for the last hour now and the river had come up significantly. So after a briefing from the guide we headed into it, as we got closer I realized that it was going to be my edge of the boat that was going to lead into the rapid and before I could thoroughly shit myself in fear I was hanging off the edge of the boat with only my legs still in the boat and water rushing over the top half of my body, I am thinking holy shit I am going over and right in the waterfall part of the rapid too, but with some intense fear I held on to the side of the raft with a death grip. I felt like I was under forever I even had my eyes open and could see everyone struggling trying to row us out of danger, I managed to pull myself up just enough to get a huge gulp of air thinking I had made it only to be hit by another rush of water driving my upper body back down into the river, now I am starting to get worried but just as I was about to give up hope and let go I felt two hands grab onto my lower legs and give me a swift heave out of the water and back into the safety of the boat. Once up I realized that both Ashley and Colin had noticed I was partially missing and grabbed my legs!!! Once I had gathered my composure the raft erupted in laughter at the fact that the one who was most scared ended up falling out of the boat, I personally didn't find it that funny.



Our raft leading into the rapid


Me missing from the raft, I should be in the back right corner across from Colin, but as you can see that corner of the raft is submerged




Our boat getting towed out of the rapid with an emergency line!

Sooo I know this blog is getting long but it was an interesting day so refill your wine glass and keep on reading cuz it gets better!

After the class four rapid of death we continued on through the rest of the rapids, then our guide kicked us all out of the boat to swim last few meters to the shore before our trip ended. This went against my better judgement due to the intense electrical storm taking place, but no one else seemed worried and I decided to not be the worry wart and get out and swim. We were no sooner in the water floating along in ignorant bliss when a huge larger than life lighting crack hits just ahead followed almost immediately by an intense electric shock that jolted us all out of the water a few inches! YES PEOPLE WE WERE HIT BY LIGHTNING!!! Or I guess the lightning hit the water and we were electrocuted. It felt like all the muscles in your body contracted really hard at once which kinda made us jump out of the water a little bit. It was funny because we all screamed at the same time when we got hit but then it was followed by silence as we all processed what had just happened, then Colin said to our guide "hey we were just electrocuted" and his was response was " I know get in the damn boat". it was weird cuz we all felt funny afterward, like my right arm and leg was tingling and kinda numb and colins knees hurt and another girls hards and feet felt numb.
After this electrifying experience we all headed back to our lodge for beer to laugh about our day.

The next day we headed our for a relaxing hike in the mooring, but after the first hour of almost straight up I realized that this hike was sooooo beyond my fitness level and we we're still very far from the waterfall at the end of the hike, with a sense of worry and extreme fatigue we foraged on, at one point. My heart rate was 192bpm, I shit you not I checked it because I was feeling a little dizzy. We lost two from our group along the hike, one girl turned back and Dan sat on the trail and waited for us to return. FINALLY we made it there - it took about 2 hrs. Ashley and Colin and some other members of the group were able to get down and sit under the water fall in a little pool but old shorty here couldn't make it over the last set of rocks (damn short ass legs) and had to wait further upstream, I did find a small off shoot from the waterfall that I could reach.



Half way through the hike - slightly drenched in sweat (just after I took my heart rate)


The 60 meter waterfall at the end.

During the afternoon we thought we would try our hand at horse back riding which was sooo fun and after that hike I was quite happy to have something lug my ass around the rain forest for a while. We did look a little funny though getting used to our steeds, turns out they are fairly competitive and after one horse bit another horse who tried to pass, and one hose kicked another horse in the face we were well on our way. It was a rather calm adventure considering our lest few, my horse tried to sit down in the stream we were passing - that was a little tense for a few moments but after a quick jab in the ribs he was back on his way again. We toured through small local villages and some trails in the rain forest it was beautifull.
We ended the night with a solid German meal ( the lodge had German owners) and lots of beer and headed to bed in our tree house!

The next day Ashley and Dan headed off further into the main land to tour the city of Copan and it's Myan ruins and Colin and I went to Utila. We spent the last few days in Utila wandering the streets and relaxing on the beach. Our ride home on the catamaran was a bit intense as the swells rose higher than the boat at times, we were tossed around like a toy - it made for a long and wet and nauseating 4 hr ride home.

This morning Ashley and Colin are diving and we are off to a restaurant called the hole in the wall this afternoon, we have to take a boat to an island somewhere and then we get all you can eat shrimp and lobster yummmm!

Can't believe we leave on Saturday!




Hiking





Bringing our rafts down to the river mouth


A giant frog - which come out in droves at night




View from the beach in Utila.

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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

All in the name of research!

Today Dan and Ashley's charge was to start a dental check program in the schools and make records of all the kids dental health. They are then going to use the data collected to try and fundraise for money from big companies like colgate to fund programs for the dentists to start going into the schools and cleaning and filling the teeth for the children. So we started with a local tiny little two room school house - packed to the brim with smiling children (smiling with slighty rotten teeth - but smiling none the less) I got to go to record the data for them. We also handed out Canadian pencils and note pads and crayons to the kids!! It was lots of fun.

After we finished the kids in that school we headed to the beach to do some paddle boarding which BTW is my new favorite sport and I think I need to purchase one of these for the lake. An excellent workout - and tons of fun taboot!!!




The school - leaves much to be desired, but the kids are all happy to be their














My first drink in a bag. So these people drink everything out of little baggies here, we have been laughing at it since we got here. And today the little kids brought us each one. I will tell ya there is a reason why these children have rotten teeth - it was diabetes in a bag!






All the kids after being checked holding up there Canadian pencils.



This was so funny, I was entering this little boys info into the computer and I spelt his name WAY wrong, he got tired of trying to tell me how to correct it so he just got in there himself and corrected it for me!



It was so hot and this was what Ashley looked like after checking the teeth, we are coining this one swaist (sweaty waist), and you thought there was only swass and switts!!!





Paddle boarding


Ashley and I trying to stand together on the paddle board


Success!!


Ashley got cocky and tried to head stand - that's as far as she got btw!!

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Monday, June 20, 2011

Shrimp festival June 19th

It's been a quiet week blog wise but to be honest we have not really done anything new this week since the impromptu church service the other night. It has been a busy week at the clinic as the head nurse has been gone on holiday and that means I have to stay several hours longer than usual. This week we had a few really sick patients but I was so frustrated because for one lady we didn't have any emergency meds for her like nitro or labetalol so we had to ship her to the hospital, however there really isn't an ambulance service here and it took her family almost 30 min to pick her up. The fun part was three days later she came back to the clinic had been released from hospital and was so grateful to everyone. I got to sped a lot of time with her as she now a newly diagnosed, diabetic, HTN, CHF I did lots of teaching on meds and lifestyle and disease process etc.
The thing I love most here and am going to have such a hard time with when I get home is the sheer gratefulness of all the patients. They are extremely polite and patient and just so grateful, they are full of please and thank yous, smiles and hugs. Some of these people wait from 5am to be seen sitting in the heat and never complain at all. It truly shows how wealth, conviencance and expectation brings out the worst in us, I would like to bring every patient here who tells a nurse or doctor off at home leaves the hospital screaming and swearing because they have been there for 20 min. It puts everything into persepective watching people who have soooo much less than us behave sooooo much better.

After clinic we took in a local annual festival which the locals have been raving about for weeks. Apparently the island has missed the last few years for this festival so everyone was really excited. The festival is a fundraiser for island needs and this year it was to put bathrooms in all the schools. Apparently not all the schools have bathroom facilities. the was lots of dancing, singing, eating and drinking happening. It took place at a local resort on the other side of the island, they even had "famous" bands from the main land and the crowd was pumpin. I even got hit on by a local!!! He wanted to do a lot of dancing - most of which was slightly inappropriate, and when I refused to dance he says - "what you no drink?" thank goodness we worked the next day and weren't drinking!!! It was all lots of fun.

Today Dan and I had a long day at the clinic and didn't finish up until 2pm while Ashley and most of the other volunteers took in a shark dive. They had sharks swimming all around them as there guide fed them meat. Ashley found a sharks tooth in the remnance of the feed. While Ashley dove with sharks Dan and I took a taxi into Coxen Hole (yes something we were told never to do) and snooped around. We found a local fish market at the docks and bought some fish for supper, also did some shopping amongst the locals - we were not bothered by anyone.
After our Coxen Hole adventure we headed out for an evening kayak and snorkel right in front of our condo. The crazy cool thing about Roatan is that the reef is literally right out your front door, unlike Australia where we took an 1 hr long boat ride to get to it. After actually getting hung up on the reef with our kayak we navigated ourselves backwards out of the apparently really shallow part (apologized nicely to the coral that I am sure we destroyed) and carried on, we then hopped out of our kayak and toured around with our snorkel gear. We saw tons of schools of fish, conch, huge starfish (that looked different than any other star fish I have ever seen), urchins etc

After a lovely fish and shrimp dinner and some drink we are settling in nicely for bed.
Funny thing of the day - it was so nice and cool and not very humid - slightly overcast. I said to Dan wow it's actually kind of chilly today I must only be like 25 or something-Dan agrees. We get home I check the temperature and it was actually 29 degrees and with the humidex felt like 45 as opposed the regular 32 degrees feeling like 50!!! Oh man we are sooooo going to freeze when we get home.

Night folks!!!




The shrimp festival














Dan patiently waiting for the bathroom



Ashley being not quite as patient - you get the drift





Ceremony at the festival


Maxin and relaxin


A two month old who was laughing at me while I was teaching her mom about the meds I was giving her (and I though my Spanish was getting better)


A little guy who was sooo tired waiting - he and his mom had been waiting since about 4:30 am this was around 10am. We triaged him right there from the scale!!


Our walk to the clinic


Still our walk


Still our walk


Still our walk


The fish market in Coxen Hole




A little bit of Coxen hole


Supper

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