(Sorry Mom, it's only an Airplane reference.)
Turns out that, despite her usual good humor, Aimee wasn’t kidding about the diarrhea.
Ugh.
I used to have a certain sense of pride that I seemed impervious to the microbes that lurk in the world’s street food. (Except, perhaps not surprisingly, the food in New Jersey; a bad plate of paella there laid my ass out so bad that I had to go the hospital!)
But that pride is no more.
Aimee and I went out with her host sister for a nice goodbye dinner near San Isidro.
Here we are, in happier times.
I need to shave.
I don’t know if it was from the chicken or the salad, but it was viral and it sucked. I woke up the next morning with all of Montezuma’s fury exploding in my intestines. Apparently he was pretty pissed off about the conquest of Nicaragua, too.
Aimee (whose sainthood is currently under review by the Vatican) spent her last morning in San Isidro chasing me down Gatorade and anti-diarrheals.
(I’m cramping up just thinking about that day, so I’m going to tell a quick sidebar story to regain my composure.)
I hate shopping. I don’t like spending money on crap that I don’t need, and I especially don’t like spending it on things that I already have. Clothing fits into both categories, and usually draws considerable ire out of me. So when Aimee and I stopped at a giant market on our way back from San Juan del Sur, I was more interested in the sights than the stuff. But Aimee told me that she liked the way guys look in a particular type of local shirt. So, pursuant to Boyfriend Code 38, section 17, I had no choice but to buy one. I was less than thrilled. However, when I wore it around San Isidro, I received an unexpectedly large amount of compliments. Some people even noted how “doctorly” I looked. “Why thank you. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Aimee all along!”
So I meekly proposed that we head back to the market and buy some more. With mock-incredulity (emphasis on incredulity), Aimee agreed to take me there on our way to Managua. Needless to say, the current conditions required us to scrap those plans.
(And we’re back)
Since we were both leaving Nicaragua in the morning, we wanted to be in Managua the night before. That way, we’d have plenty of cushion, in case something came up (and it did, we’ll get to that in a second).
Every alternating round of diarrhea and vomit pushed back our departure time. But by 3:00 in the afternoon, I was ready to brave the two hour bus ride. (And remember, the bus drivers don’t stop for anything.) However, we didn’t think that we’d make it to the San Isidro bus stop in time for the 3:15 bus. But that was fine, since the 3:45 bus was an express, and would get us there even faster. (Enter irony, stage right.)
We ended up catching the bus without incident, and everything appeared to be going smoothly for the first hour. However, about the time that my poop drugs started wearing off, our bus got stuck in a traffic jam. We were about twenty minutes outside of Managua, and there should have been about 30 minutes left in our trip. Ha.
After about 10-15 minutes without moving, our driver shut off the engine, and got out to look around. We didn’t see him again for an hour.
When he came back, we overheard the driver talking with his helpers. The Spanish word for “tanker” is very similar to the one for “strike”, so we weren’t sure if we were waiting for a spill to be cleaned, or for an uprising to be quelled. Either way, we knew that we weren’t going to get moving any time soon.
By this point, some of the passengers had gotten out to stretch their legs. However, I reasoned that the severe muscle cramps that I was getting wouldn’t be as bad as the killer headache and nausea that I got every time I moved. Besides, my downtown muscles are only so strong, and any movement could have put their hold in jeopardy.
But time (and bowels) kept moving, and our bus was going nowhere. First came 5:00, the 6:00, then the sun went down, then 7:00, then, “Oh, God.”
I had been squirming in the bus for quite a while, and I knew what had to be done. I asked Aimee for the flashlight, and ventured off into the brush. (The tree that I had selected sure looked a lot bigger from the bus, but I was in no mood to keep searching.) So I dropped my shorts and let the magic happen.
Ahh…
Feeling newly revived, I headed back to the bus. Since I had already ejected every last calorie that I had in my body, I was starting to get painfully hungry. Unfortunately, the only food that we had between the two of us was a few sticks of gum. We had only packed for a two hour bus ride, not a three hour tour. But that was probably for the best, since I was having a hard time keeping anything down. In fact, I’d be getting back up in about an hour to go vomit out any air that was still in my belly.
By this point, it was about 10 or 11, and there were no signs of movement. I was getting pretty sleepy, but our bed choices were bleak. I’m about 3 sizes too large to get comfortable in the bus seats, and who knew what kinds of lovely tropical insects lurked in the bushes alongside the road. So I took advantage of the situation to fulfill a dream that I’ve had ever since I was young boy. I slept under a truck on the Pan-American Highway.
And as not-fun as that may sound to you now, it was even less fun in real life. So I found myself back on the bus pretty quickly, playing bucket seat twister to get comfortable.
I did finally manage to fall asleep, and around 3:00 AM, I woke up to one of the greatest sights that I have ever seen.
This nearly indecipherable image is of a stream of cars heading the opposite direction, along the frontage, um, rock path. We had seen a few individual cars try to make the journey past the roadblock, but until then, never more than one or two per hour. The road was clearing!
During our wait, I had been curious about how this was all going to play out, since some impatient bus drivers had clogged the opposite lane, in an apparent attempt to get around the roadblock that they knew they couldn’t get around. But once the cars and small vehicles had crossed over onto the path, there was enough room for the buses to slide past one another.
As it turns out, the roadblock did actually turn out to be a protest. Sandinista farmers had blocked the road with a pile of flaming tires, in opposition to the high interest rates that they have to pay on their microfinance loans. While I’m a little weary of the corruption espoused by their leader, Daniel Ortega, I really do sympathize with the farmers. They’ve been drawing the political short straws in Nicaragua for decades. And we all know that banks don’t set their interest rates out of any sense of charity. Besides, I witnessed plenty of desperation in Nicaragua, and the farmers didn’t have many options. It’s not like there’s a Managua chapter of the Better Business Bureau.
Granted, I was having a hard time maintaining my sympathy at 3am, but looking back, I am pretty impressed with the farmers’ resourcefulness. They shut the country down for a day, and really brought attention to their cause. Unfortunately, my bowels were caught in the crossfire, but that’s something that I can live with!
But I digress, this story’s about poop, not politics.
We ended up arriving in Managua around 4:15 in the morning, which is about the time that we should have woken up from a nice long slumber. So we went straight to the airport and took full advantage of their facilities. Particularly the ones made out of porcelain.
Aimee was flying out that morning, but I still had to catch a bus back to Costa Rica. Of course. So we said our goodbyes, and I took a cab to the bus station. After a little confusion at the ticket counter (standard check-in procedure), I was comfortably on board. And despite the nightmares of roadblock-sized diarrhea, I’ve never slept so soundly.
