I can remember, roughly 1.2 million years ago when I was a highly decorated Sixer in the Wolf Cubs, the mantra we were always hearing about was “be prepared”. Preparation was extremely important as I recall, although what exactly the 9-year-old me was supposed to be prepared for remains a little fuzzy.
Regardless, it didn’t much matter anyway, as in spite of all my training being prepared for the unforeseen has never been one of my strong points. I’m more of a “take it as it comes” kinda guy, an attitude that’s served me just fine over the years – most of the time, at least.
That said, one of those occasions when my cavalier approach to readiness did leave me somewhat compromised was a few years back when I unwittingly found myself camped out at an old friend’s yoga retreat in the thick of the Nicaraguan jungle. Yeah, I know. Don’t ask how I wound up there, but with the grounds only accessible after a treacherous boat ride down a river teeming with God knows what kind of hateful wildlife, rest assured it wasn’t my first choice of travel destinations.
Now as any Wolf Cub worth his weight in barf will tell you, rule of thumb when venturing into the wild is to be equipped with a modicum of essentials, a first aid kit no doubt paramount among them. Of course, being new to the bush, the only essentials I brought along for my month-long jungle excursion was a toothbrush and The Executioners Song, Norman Mailer’s 1024 page effort about Utah murderer Gary Gilmore’s struggle to have the State fry him out of his misery via the electric chair. Certainly if I was forgetting anything crucial, my friend James would have it at his retreat.
Banged up in the bush
Sure enough, of course, I hadn’t been in the jungle a week before I took a fall and cut my big toe up real bad, like, with half of it dangling off my foot. Not only did it hurt like nobody’s business but, as I was soon to learn, once the jungle smells blood it only takes a day or two before infection kicks in, and apparently an untreated infection is pretty serious business way out in the tropical rain forest. You can buy all the travel insurance in the world, but it ain’t worth much when you’re days away from the nearest doctor – and funny enough, there aren’t too many health professionals practicing in the thick of the tropical rain forest. Who knew? Not that a doctor was even necessary, all I really needed was to apply a bit of anti-bacterial cream to my wound, bandage it up, and I’d be almost good as new a few days later.
So I figured no problem. I found James, showed him my foot and asked if he had any gauze lying around. “Well, of course,” he answered, “you’ve gotta be prepared for everything out here,” and promptly went back to his cabin to get his medical supplies. When he eventually emerged some 20 minutes later, I recognized concern on his face. “You’re not gonna believe this, Chris, I’ve got plenty of gauze but can’t for the life of me find any anti-bacterial ointments. I don’t get it, we always have some around. It’s crucial, actually.” James then proceeded to scare the hell out of me by informing me just how vulnerable I was to infection and that if my toe did become infected, how I’d probably have to get back to Managua – and fast – or possibly risk amputation or even death. Wonderful.
The thing is, however, that leaving James’ place is no simple task. It’s a good half-day ride up-river to anything resembling civilization, and that’s with two people paddling. Yes, paddling. James, being an earth mother sort of man, doesn’t believe in motorized travel for ecological reasons. He says it upsets the marine life.
Even if you can summon the strength to paddle against the current to get to town without becoming some crocodiles lunch, once there you still need to catch a bus back to Managua to find medical care, oh, and that bus only leaves once a week, on Sunday nights. Given it was Wednesday, the possibility of my attempting the journey to Managua, solo and wounded, was anything but comforting.
Let the healing begin
Thursday started off promisingly enough but by late evening/early morning my toe had begun to lightly throb, a sure sign of impending infection. James, who’d taken on the role of jungle physician, was concerned I’d have to head back to Managua asap. Then again, he offered, if I was prepared to keep my toe in salt water for the next day and a half, which would apparently stave off the infection, he had a yoga group from Seattle arriving on Saturday and he’d use his satellite internet connection to make sure somebody brought anti-bacterial cream along with them. Given my enthusiasm for the solo voyage back to civilization, it seemed the prudent thing to do. So for the next 39 hours I sat there, bored out of my skull, my foot in a bucket of salt water, gradually shriveling into something barely recognizable. Sleeping, as you can imagine, was especially challenging.
Nevertheless, on Saturday afternoon James’ yoga group eventually arrived with the ointment I needed. I removed my foot from that godforsaken bucket, applied the cream, bandaged everything up, and within a day or so the throbbing abated as my foot began to heal. Yahoo! I was free to enjoy life again!
Except nothing of the sort took place. For starters, the exotic beauty and isolation of the jungle can lose its charm pretty quickly, in fact, it’s deathly boring after a while. As a result, my 1024 pages of Gary Gilmore were long over while the only other reading material I could find at James’ were yoga magazines galore and/or a few publications of the sort you might find in a gynecologists waiting room. Oh yeah, and one picture book about organic gardening.
But far worse than a lack of stimulation, my yoga people saviors turned out to be unbearable. These mega-judgmental well-to-do hippie-types were in my face about pretty well everything I said, ate, and/or apparently stood for. A few days into it and I simply couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to get out of there, the combo of boredom and the eternal wrath of the Seattle yogis suddenly made the solo journey up-river not seem quite so bad anymore.
Three days later I was back in Managua.
Photo Credit
Photo from Pixabay
Guest Author Profile
Chris Barry
Chris Barry is a freelance writer and musician based in Montreal, Canada.
Website / Blog: Loose Lips
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