Taste of Bolivian Medicine
Copacabana, Bolivia - Day 9
Today was...interesting. Katie and I woke up today understandable shaken. Yesterday, last night specifically, sucked. We never intended to do that and never want to do that again. To add to the 'fun' my mosquito bite had turned a nasty deep purple and began to blister. Katie didn't think it looked good and so we started off our tour of Bolivian Emergency Rooms. The first of which turned out to be just a short walk from our AirBnB. When we arrived there was two doors, one for adult emergencies and one for pediatric emergencies. Three booths which I assumed were for receptionists were between those doors. Two booths were blacked out and one had it's light on, but no one ever sat down in it. Not knowing if we should just walk into the adult emergency room, we decided to go ahead and make our way to Copacabana and go to the hospital there. The drive to get outside of La Paz was terrible, but not as bad as last night and me managed it pretty well. As soon as we left the city limits of La Paz and were on a highway the driving got exponentially better. To get to Copacabana, you have to take a wooden barge across lake Titicaca. I was imagining them laying down two narrow wood planks for me to drive up onto the barge, but they had a much better system and it was easy. Soon we would be rolling up to our AirBnB hosts house in Copacabana.
Side Story: A couple of months ago Wendy, the AirBnB host for our stay in Copacabana, sent me a message asking me if I could possible bring her a letter (containing a new debit card) from the States. As I mentioned before, there are not really addresses in Bolivia and even if there were, it doesn't sound like there is postal service. She had told me she tried to buy some craft glue from Amazon once and it cost something like $120 for shipping (to La Paz customs) and another $80 or so to retrieve it from customs. For a $10 bottle of glue...Crazy. Anyway, she had the letter sent to my office at work and I packed it away in our luggage.
Wendy came out and hopped in the car. She is extraordinarily friendly, and has a really interesting story. Her father was a mining engineer (and must have been a really good one) that traveled all around for work. She said she was born in the States, but spent her early childhood in Peru. They moved every few years by the sounds of it. Fast forward a bit and her parents retired to Bolivia. She would come to visit and loved it and eventually moved to Cochabamba (Where she met her husband Helder) and has lived in Bolivia for over a decade now. She knew about my mosquito bite because I had asked her for hospital recommendations in Copacabana. She said she would give us a little tour of Copacabana, get settled in our AirBnB, and then go about 15 minutes to the boarder of Peru to visit Yunguyo, a boarder town that has a hospital she prefers. While in Yunguyo, we toured their market, met the proprietor of a restaurant that Wendy really likes, and then made our way to the hospital. Interestingly, the doctors at that hospital were on strike and had a big sign outside saying so. Wendy tried to speak to the doctor to see if we could pay him cash to see us, but the answer was no.
We made our way back to Copacabana and went to the the small hospital there. The hospital was closed, but had 24 hour emergency care. We rang the doorbell, and someone came and met us at the gate. Wendy very kindly translated for me and soon we were talking with a doctor. The doctor didn't think it was anything serious because of the lack of other symptoms, but it had gotten infected (most likely when I bumped it getting off the plane). They cleaned it up, drained the blisters, and bandaged my knee. In addition, they gave me an antibiotic cream, a cortisol shot in the fanny, and a strong Antihistamine. Now you might be thinking..."Emergency care with no insurance? How much is that going to cost me??" The total for my care and medication was $b47 Bollivianos, or $6.90 USD. Other than the medication, I am just supposed to watch it and make sure it doesn't get any worse or I develop any other symptoms. This whole experience was made infinitely better with the help of Wendy. It had to be the weirdest check in she ever had to do, but she and Helder are hands down the friendliest, most helpful AirBnB hosts we have ever encountered.
And that is that. Katie and I have now made it to our 12th (Bolivia) and technically 13th (Peru) countries. We have also now been to the emergency room of a foreign hospital (And for me, first time I have ever received treatment from an ER...ever).
