Volunteering to Get Parasites
Trip Start
Jul 14, 2010
1
23
93
Trip End
May 18, 2011
Where I stayed
Fredericoīs Finca
Portobelo, Colón, Panama
Saturday, October 16, 2010
By the way, the keyboard Iīm using wonīt let me use the top row with the numbers, so there will be no exclamation marks and therefore no apparent excitement in this entry. For the same keyboard malfunction, I couldnīt add parentheses to set these three sentences apart from the rest of the story. Lame.
We took a 1 hour bus ride to Sabanitas, then another 45 minute packed bus ride to Portobelo. We met up with Frederico at the bakery he and his family owns, and he seemed generally surprised to see us. Apparently, his friend with whom we had been in contact had not let him know we were coming, and we were definitely the first ones to take him up on his offer. The plan was for us to spend the night at Fredericoīs house the first night and then he would take us up to the finca the next day. He made sure that we understood that this was not for the faint of heart, and we would have a lot of work to do in order to make the place livable. He thought it might even take us two days to get everything up and running. He doesnīt know us very well.
We walked around during the day in Portobelo, as Frederico was busy working at his bakery, which was very popular even though it had only been opened four months. The town is very small, easily walkable in ten or fifteen minutes, so we did a lot of sitting around. We eventually headed back to the bakery at night and ordered a pizza from Frederico. By the way, Frederico is known in Portobelo as El Italiano, as heīs the only Italian in town. To me, this makes his pizza legit - and it was pretty damn good. exclamation mark. stupid keyboard...
When we got to Fredericoīs house, I was surprised by the size, simply because it was two stories tall. We slept in a guest bedroom/extra room full of random stuff that had a bathroom attached to it. Off to a good start. We didnīt sleep too well, though, because as soon as we got there, they started playing music loudly in the room next door. Mind you, it was something like midnight. Alright, I guess Panamanians just like their music. Fair enough. Then, because the house was situated outside of town a bit, there was space enough for roosters and mules. Man, if I have ever heard a confused animalīs cry, it is the muleīs. It doesnīt know if it should neigh like a horse or hee-haw like a donkey, so it does a little bit of both, and kind of screams in the process. Poor animal. Poor us trying to sleep through it.
Anyway, the next morning, we went in Fredericoīs truck out to the farm, which was out in the middle of nowhere, through farms and jungle. Right before you get to the farm, too, the road is washed out due to leaky pipes that used to run under the road, so you have to take a detour walking trail ten feet down to a creek and back up the other side. The finca was great, though. There was a thatch roofed hut with a hammock and chairs, a separate hut with a bathroom and tool shed, and then there was the house weīd be staying in. We walked in and were immediately welcomed by some really beautiful turquoise poison dart frogs that had made their home in a wood pile in front of the house. Inside, there was a bat that Frederico said was a vampire bat, but Iīm pretty sure it wasnīt. It seems like a general trend for people to mess with Logan and me on our travels, telling us things that arenīt true with a straight face. The house definitely had a layer of dirt covering all of its surfaces, including walls and ceiling, but it was nothing we couldnīt handle. Also, there was no running water or electricity, although there had been in the past. This is the place that Frederico and his family had lived for four years before moving closer to town. With a machete, Frederico and his step son Gilberto, known as Titi, after the monkeys, cleared the path down to the water hole where weīd be able to bathe Adam and Eve style, as Frederico put it, and collect buckets of water for cooking. After theyīd left, we quickly got to work and had the place livable by dinnertime. The next day, we cleaned the place even more, making the place actually comfortable as opposed to just livable. On the third morning, Frederico visited us again and unlocked the tool shed so that we could mow the lawn to make snakes easier to spot - we saw just one slither away the previous day near the wood pile, and when we described it to Frederico, he said matter-of-factly that it was very poisonous. Of course it was, and the bat was going to suck our blood, too. Iīm not saying I donīt have a healthy respect for nature and poisonous things, but Iīm not completely convinced that everything about that finca was out to kill me.
After mowing and weed-whacking for a while, Logan and I were sufficiently tired, and took the rest of the afternoon off. The next morning, we had planned to go into Portobelo, as the festival for Cristo Negro was that day, and weīd have to hike out 5km to the nearest bus stop. Turns out, Loganīs tiredness wasnīt just the normal kind, as that morning, the diarrhea began. He took antibiotics, and after a while of deciding whether we should still go into town or not, we left for Portobelo. It took us about two or three hours of walking to get to the bus stop, stopping every so often so that Logan could recoup his strength by laying down. There were two nice things about that walk: It was mostly downhill, and we saw our first coati. Excitement with an exclamation mark.
We went to the bakery to check in with Frederico, and he kindly allowed us to stay with his family at his house that night, as the Cristo Negro festivities really only began after daybreak. This time, Portobelo was completely packed with people dressed in purple for the festival. During the day, every once in a while we would see a few people slowly crawl by on the street toward the church that contained the Black Christ, followed closely by people dripping purple candle wax on their backs, I assume to depict the suffering that Christ went through in his final days. Finally, at night time, we watched as 30 or so people marched the statue of the Black Christ through the streets of Portobelo to music. People come from all around Panama and other countries to witness this festival. Many people claim that they have had a feeling come over them because of the Black Christ and supposedly if you say a prayer as it passes by and it comes true, you have to do something for the community of Portobelo, and if you donīt follow through with this, your prayer/wish will come back at you two fold.
This apparently didnīt work out for Logan. His diarrhea didnīt stop with the antibiotics, so we went to the local clinic the next day for some help. They gave him an IV because he hadnīt eaten in two days, and prescribed him some medicine that weīd have to pick up from Sabanitas, 45 minutes away. Obviously, we wouldnīt be heading back to the finca any time soon. After picking up the medicine, we shared a yogurt drink so that Logan could get some good bacteria back into his system. After a packed bus, with closed windows due to the rain, back to Portobelo, Logan got off the bus and the yogurt came out of his stomach the same way it had gone in. So much for pro-biotics.
We stayed in a hostel in town for a few nights while Logan took his medication. He was starting to feel better, and was able to eat at least some food, so we went back to Sabanitas to get some more provisions for the rest of our stay at the finca. We got more minutes for our phone and Logan called his family to let them know he was doing better. They brought up a good point, though. Logan hadnīt really urinated for 4 days. This was definitely a problem. So to make sure he didnīt have any kidney problems, we headed to the clinic in Sabanitas, and after much convincing, we got the doctor to run tests to make sure his kidneys were okay. They gave him another IV so that he would be hydrated enough to pee, which was a nightmare in and of itself, as Logan is deathly afraid of needles, and it took them two painful tries to get it right.
At this point, Logan decided he was ready to get the hell out of Portobelo, so we went back to the farm via taxi - we forgot that there was a stream 2km into the road to the finca, so we walked the last 3km there, grabbed our things, ate some lunch, and headed back down the hill to the bus stop. Fortunately, there were people at the next farm down with a truck, so we asked if we could get a ride with them, at least just to the bus stop. They were more than happy to help us out, but had some work to do first, and invited us to watch. We sat on a wooden fence while we watched our driver and his father separate and spray his cattle with fly poison. They said it was so that the animals would spend less time trying to get flies off of them and more time grazing. They were definitely being raised for their meat. Afterward, we drove back out of the jungle, listening to latin country music - the kind with accordions - and were dropped off at a bus stop on the main road. From here, it was a few easy bus rides back to Panama City, our safe haven.
Of course, about a day later, I started having symptoms of something wrong in my system and took antibiotics. They also didnīt work, so we went to a private clinic this time in Panama City, where my doctor had his own office with an exam room in the back. He asked me a few questions, tapped my belly, and easily determined that I, too, had parasites. Sweet. I was now part of the prestigious club. He prescribed me a different kind of anti-parasitic than Logan got, but it worked just as well. Within three days, I was parasite free. My experience was not as hellish as Loganīs, which I chalk up to the fact that I forced myself to eat and therefore avoided any IVs. I had definitely learned my lesson from Logan.
So long, Portobelo. I donīt think Iīll ever return - no offense.
Comments
Whoa! I'm so glad you guys are okay now. Poor Logan. You're systems are going to be indestructable once you get back to the states! I hear ya about people trying to tell you stuff that isn't true. <> It makes for some good laughs, though!
Oh, and I don't know what <> is supposed to mean. For some reason I typed that in ....