More Toe

Just my crazy life to have crushed my toe the night before leaving for Costa Rica.  I almost delayed my trip.  But in the end I decided to brave it.  My friend Michelle (pictured in the previous post as bandaging me up) took me to the doctor hours before I moved out of Bridget's apartment and left Nicaragua for the forseeable future, my whole world on my back.  The doctor bandaged the toe and said that as long as I kept it dry and clean, the bandage should last two days.  (A huge plus since I need a glass of wine just to look at the wound, and even after that I almost faint every time.  I even used one of my precious Xanex trying to deal with the grossness of it all.)  I was shaking as he cleaned it, wrapped it with antibiotic cream, gauze, a popsicle stick, an Ace bandage and sent me on my way.  Limping all the way to the bus station, in and around Managua, and onto another bus headed for Costa Rica. 

I was finally able to relax on the bus.  But, buses that go between countries have to stop at borders.  And at borders you have to get out of the bus and walk around and get passports stamped and bags searched.  AND of course it started raining. I had a strike of genius and asked the in-bus flight attendant guy if he had a plastic bag.  YAY!  Dry bandage.  BUT of course I had to go pee and go in a disgusting bathroom where I stepped all over in pee with plastic bag foot and then had to save the same bag for more 'off the bus' happenings.  I arrived to Costa Rica in major style:

The problem was it was nighttime, and I was the only person to get off the bus in Liberia in the dark, about one hour from my destination of Huacas.  I was accosted by a man who said he was a taxi, and of course he had an unmarked car.  I asked for taxi identification, and he didn't have any.  I kept asking him if he was prepared to murder a nice girl from Minnesota.  Big toothy smiles and no no no's later, I decided 'te confio.'  I trust you.  But I had to negotiate a price.  I said I would give him $35 plus I needed to use his phone to call my friend.  (A secret clue for the police that my murderer's number would be on her phone.)  Then I said I needed to go to the ATM.  I left all my belongings in his car and went to the ATM and he didn't drive off so I trusted him a little extra.  And then I made sure to just talk and talk and talk about my friend having his phone number now so he really shouldn't murder me.  We made friends and he took this photo, of me, and all my belongings and my plastic bag foot.  When he dropped me at yet another in the dark location where I waited for Nicole and I couldn't get her on the phone.  So I ate dinner and tried to ignore the 5 or 6 dudes outside the store that my taxi driver told me not to talk to.  Just before I lost hope, she arrived, and we went to her fantastic apartment and drank lots of wine.

That was last Tuesday.  It is now Sunday.  My foot has been bandaged three more times this week, all by me.  I have walked probably 147 miles on my bad, limpy, one sock feet.  I try to wear one cute shoe so people know that I know that the sock is weird, and only due to a horrible 10 plastic chair injury.  But I really think things are looking better.  Here's a photo.  Sorry about your stomachs, but it's like I tell my dad.  I'm a journalist.  (Not really.)  I just gotta report the news.  (Kind of.) 



When complete strangers ask me what happened to my foot?  I really wish I could remember the Spanish words for 'dropped' and 'crushed', because instead I tell them: "I carry 10 plastic chairs" and then I pantomime dropping them, and them crushing my toe, and then I say, "Poor little toe."