Well as you all probably know we are now back in NZ, living in Whakatane and loving the sunshine capital of NZ.
But I haven't quite finished blogging. Things got so busy towards the end of our stay and we got really sick at one stage so I'm afraid the blogging went a bit by the by.
Anyways, here we are, a bit more settled and I've been dying to find the time to do this blog of our trip to Puerto Rico as it was such a beautiful place and we met such lovely people on our trip there.
But speaking of being ill, before we get into the Puerto Rico trip, let me tell you, did we get sick!
Ok so you're in a third world country, you expect the odd parasite or case of the trots and you deal with it, no worries, but Porl and I actually got so ill, not long before we headed to Puerto Rico, that we thought we might not make it there or actually any where else, other than a pine box.
It started when we went for swim at the beach in the town, not far from home. As we swam I commented to Porl that the water tasted yuk but it was so hot and we all know that exercise is good for us so we carried on swimming for 20 mins or so before heading home.
Oh btw if you don't like gore I should warn you to look away now and maybe skip ahead to the Puerto Rico part of the post ;)
So where was I, oh yes, swimming. Then that night we got the runs. Ok, no big deal, certainly not unheard of. Next day the runs were worse, ok so maybe this is a bad case, maybe it'd pay to take it easy for a day or two. But this went on for two whole weeks weeks without stop.
Usually when you get the runs you think ok, not nice but I'll just drink lots of fluids, flush the bug out and we'll be good to go. Well not this time. We just slowly got weaker and weaker, we had no desire to eat and in the second week we realised that we were hardly drinking either.
There we were lying side by side, wasting away with no energy and not getting any better. (Gore warning ...) I realized that we might actually be in quite serious trouble the morning that I came out of the bathroom and looked at my poor wizened up little husband and he looked at me and said, it's black isn't it, and I said 'yes'. Neither of us had much strength but we really needed to do something, so I set off, very slowly, up the road to the doctors. She said that we had likely ingested a nasty bacteria from the sea (probably from fecal matter) - I did warn you ... and what was happening was that our intestines were bleeding - nice!
So anyway, to cut a long story short we got on some heavy duty antibiotics and electrolytes and thankfully came right in time to head off on our trip. So, back to the much more palatable part of the story ...
But speaking of being ill, before we get into the Puerto Rico trip, let me tell you, did we get sick!
Ok so you're in a third world country, you expect the odd parasite or case of the trots and you deal with it, no worries, but Porl and I actually got so ill, not long before we headed to Puerto Rico, that we thought we might not make it there or actually any where else, other than a pine box.
It started when we went for swim at the beach in the town, not far from home. As we swam I commented to Porl that the water tasted yuk but it was so hot and we all know that exercise is good for us so we carried on swimming for 20 mins or so before heading home.
Oh btw if you don't like gore I should warn you to look away now and maybe skip ahead to the Puerto Rico part of the post ;)
So where was I, oh yes, swimming. Then that night we got the runs. Ok, no big deal, certainly not unheard of. Next day the runs were worse, ok so maybe this is a bad case, maybe it'd pay to take it easy for a day or two. But this went on for two whole weeks weeks without stop.
Usually when you get the runs you think ok, not nice but I'll just drink lots of fluids, flush the bug out and we'll be good to go. Well not this time. We just slowly got weaker and weaker, we had no desire to eat and in the second week we realised that we were hardly drinking either.
There we were lying side by side, wasting away with no energy and not getting any better. (Gore warning ...) I realized that we might actually be in quite serious trouble the morning that I came out of the bathroom and looked at my poor wizened up little husband and he looked at me and said, it's black isn't it, and I said 'yes'. Neither of us had much strength but we really needed to do something, so I set off, very slowly, up the road to the doctors. She said that we had likely ingested a nasty bacteria from the sea (probably from fecal matter) - I did warn you ... and what was happening was that our intestines were bleeding - nice!
So anyway, to cut a long story short we got on some heavy duty antibiotics and electrolytes and thankfully came right in time to head off on our trip. So, back to the much more palatable part of the story ...
Although Puerto Rico wasn't exactly on our itinerary we were very excited when we received and inviation to be part of Ben Rutherford and Marielle Valle's wedding day, with the wedding being held in Puerto Rico. The budget was pretty tight and we had some problems with the first airline we booked with, not mentioning any names (hhhrrrrSPIRIThhmmmm) but with a bit of help from Ben and Mari we managed to get things together and we were set to go.
So we said goodbye to our then housemate Dio who was loving the whole Nicaraguan 'no water, bucket bath' experience while living with us ...
So we said goodbye to our then housemate Dio who was loving the whole Nicaraguan 'no water, bucket bath' experience while living with us ...
We said goodbye to our lovely studies .... here's Jesus' little girl having her shower - such a cutie!
No day is complete without at least a mini-adventure in Nicaragua and sure enough on the way home our bus was stopped and searched by police. Turned out they had been tipped off that someone was carrying a gun, and 'nek minnit' two girls were taken off the bus and when their bags were searched there it was!
Just another day in San Juan, Nicaragua.
The next morning we started our journey to Puerto Rico.
To get the cheapest ticket we had to fly out of Costa Rica so this meant catching a bus into Rivas (the opposite direction) to where we could pick up a Tica bus.
Waiting, watching ....
And here was our ride.
We stopped at the Nicaraguan/Costa Rican border for a customs check.
We stayed in an hostel in Costa Rica that I had found online with some rather amazing decor.
It also had two very important plusses ...
Hot water in the shower!!!!
Ah our first hot shower for months, so nice!
And ... a pool table!!! Also nice :)
There was also some very cute artwork.
Aren't sloths cute!
Then it was off to the airport to fly the long way round to PR
through Fort Lauderdale in the States.
Porl wasn't too impressed with the meal :)
But the important thing was that we were on our way to beautiful Puerto Rico, how exciting!
It was a pretty long trip, all around the houses ...
But we were finally on Puerto Rican soil and we booked into a very old building turned hostel kindly checked out by a friend for us. It had a rather rustic, rundown kind of charm and was run by an ancient and rather eccentric but kindly old gentleman.
The tiling was amazing as was the stair well, apparently the building was built in 1918.
The location was, as they say 'primo', right in the heart of Old San Juan.
The view from our balcony.
One of the locals having a wee rest :)
Our first morning in Old San Juan!
So we had arrived, now to explore!
Tune in next time for the next exciting episode of
'Puerto Rico' Part 2 - Let the adventure begin!
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