March 6, 2016

It's official....I like beer. :). Well.....as long as it is San Miguel Apple Flavoured or Lemon Flavoured beer that is.  ...and the Bonus is....it's cheaper than water!

You're getting a combination of the 5th and 6th events in this post as blogging was not in the cards for me last night.

To set up for our tour A (on the 5th) we had to rent snorkel and mask.  Lynda wanted flippers too so they had to search every corner of El Nido to get a pair that would fit her feet.  I told them my feet were big enough without flippers and I think I heard them heave a sigh of relief.  LOL.

Our tour departed our accom at 9 a.m and we knew from the photos and what we'd heard from others that we were in for a great day but in the end.....Wow!  Gorgeous!  The stuff dreams are made of.  Deserted beaches, sugary white sand, and warm waves lapping up on the shore.  Yep....we are a lucky pair!

The not so lucky part is that at our lunchtime stop I was just standing chest deep in the gorgeous azure water happily chatting to a couple of guys from the UK when all of a sudden I felt a stinging sensation on my back (I was facing the shore).  Within mili-seconds that sensation had also wrapped itself around my upper arms and chest and by the time it was all over my lower arms had taken several hits as well.  The jury is out on exactly what it was that stung me but what I do know for sure is that it was some gelatinous thing (or things) that were long and thin and very very attracted to sticking themselves to me!  I was able to get the ones off my arms and chest (and the bits that were stuck to the front of my bathing suit) but the ones on my back were out of my reach.  Thankfully one of the fellows I was talking with braved the pain he too would have to endure and plucked them off my back.  Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!  I walked back toward our boat where our tour guide, Jason, was preparing for lunch.  He jumped right in the sea with fresh water in hand and began to wash the remaining stingers from my body with that fresh cold water.  If nothing else that cool water sure felt good on the burning stings.  The sting isn't unbearable but it is very irritating and what is kind of unbearable is how long it lasts.  Here I am almost a full 24 hours later and the burning/stinging is still alive and well on my worst sting sites.  The real complication came in that I had an allergic reaction to the stings which was likely exacerbated by the fact that there were so many stings as well as their location (upper body). Within an hour I was sneezing non-stop and my nose was running like a tap.  Our tour was only 1/2 done when all of this happened and certainly we would have returned to shore if I began to have difficulty breathing but the breathing was okay and so at our next stop I stayed on the boat and then at the final stop I found some shade to lay down on the beach but boy was I glad when the trip was over and we were back to the room.  I had some Benadryl in the room so took a couple of those right away and got into bed.  Interestingly the Benadryl didn't seem to do a thing and as time passed my symptoms seemed to get worse.  What had once just been burning at the sting sites had grown to include a prickly sensation in my mouth and throat as well as gripping muscle pains and spasms in my chest, back, and legs.  Once that started it didn't take long to decide that a dr might be a good idea so I could get blood pressure checked etc.  Soooo....Lynda and I hopped into a tricycle and he honked his way down the road as though he was an ambulance en route to the emergency room.  When we arrived at the dr office we found nothing more than a sign saying that there is "no doctor" and a woman standing there to tell us that there is no doctor until next week.  ( I guess our hotel had phoned ahead to let them know we were on our way as everyone was quite worried about me - especially after they saw the number of and my body's reaction to the sting sites). As luck would have it ....and we are pretty lucky you know.... There is another dr in town but he is "very expensive".  But heh....didn't I just pay a bunch of money to have travel insurance for just this scenario?  So what the heck...who cares how much he costs - lets go!  As our trike drove up to this dr office we could see that we had arrived just in time to catch him as he was already getting into his car to drive away from his office.  He turned around and in we all went.  I'm actually not sure how to describe what we saw so I think I'll take a breath here and start a new paragraph. :)

There were a couple sets of flip flops outside the front door but Lynda and I could see that inside was no cleaner than outside so we left our shoes on!  Immediately inside the door was the dr's desk and right in front of that was a small "treatment area".  Between the treatment area and the dr's desk was an old plastic chair that I was to sit in for my examination.  In the treatment area a nurse was working on a man who had some very serious lesions all over his body.  I have a guess about what he might be suffering from but I think I'll just leave that to your imagination.  She was swabbing his sores with gauze and tweezers and he was sitting there shivering.  The dr asked Lynda to write my name down in a book for him (just a plain scribbler).  He asked her to leave a little space above my name and I'm assuming that is so he'd have room to be able to jot a note about the treatment provided to the person whose name was above mine.  At the same time he called another assistant out to take my blood pressure as he asked me to describe my symptoms.  His assistant hooked me up to an automatic BP unit (you know the kind that we can buy in the drugstore) and as the final numbers came up his eyebrows rose too and he asked...."is your usual blood pressure 237/125?" To which I replied, "NO!"  He said "do you have a headache?"...and I again said, "No, not really" and then my inside voice said....but I sure can feel one coming on!!!  His assistant then brought out a stethoscope and manual BP cuff which the dr velcroed onto my same arm....you know the one with the WORST of the stings on it!!!  OUCH! and proceeded to take my BP again.  This time Lynda was watching over his shoulder and thankfully her old nursing training kicked in and she was able to see that I was 150/90 - a much more suitable reading given that the first one indicated I should be keeling over any second!  The dr took a third reading (yes....on that same arm!) with that little machine again and this time it was consistent with his manual reading so he breathed a sigh of relief.  I should also add here that the dr couldn't see very well....he needed a flashlight and his glasses to be able to read anything and all the while that he is working he is also making some crazy small talk about how he's not supposed to do surgery here and that "they" don't like it when he does but ...he says, "how many people would die if they had to travel the 6 or 7 hours to a recognized surgical site.  So when it is just a stabbing or some other emergent circumstance...he just does it."  I think it was at this point when Lynda looked at me and mouthed the words, "you're not staying here no matter what he says!"  I nodded my agreement as I too had already ascertained that the standard of practice here was not quite up to the standard I've grown accustomed to. :). On the upside...the dr did seem to know what he was talking about regarding my issue and he was also able to give me some meds right then and there.  So as we left both Lynda and I had one more unforgettable experience to add to our collection as well as enough prednisone for me to be able to take 3 tonight and then two more days of 3/day.  Dr had also given me 10 daytime antihistamine that I could take each morning.  Both Lynda and I had fingers and toes crossed that the 3 oral prednisone tonight would be enough of a kick to get this allergic reaction headed in the right direction because the alternative was to have the dr give me an injection and I wasn't 100% confident that would be a smart thing to do!  BTW.....this very expensive dr charged me a total of 1500 PHP for the visit and the meds....heck....the experience alone was worth the $45! :)

Now here I've written all of this about that stupid jelly something or other and his/their stings and I haven't said much at all about the amazing things we saw and did along the tour today.  It's actually really hard to put the beauty we saw into words as no words can really do justice to the magnificence of nature.  The limestone rocks that jutted up out of the crystalline water around our boat were awesome.  Black and white dotted with green plant life standing tall and proud beside us.....it felt as though we were in a painting or a magazine feature story.  Our boat was really smooth even though there was the occasional section of open water where waves got a little choppy.  The boat was long and narrow with wooden pontoons hanging out on each side - I suspect that is why it felt so stable even in choppy water.  Every beach we saw was made of icing sugar fine white powdery sand that never gets hot - no matter how much sun shines on it.  It really is amazing to experience that phenomenon.  When I think about how hot the sand on the beaches at home gets....it is always a shock to be reminded that white sand never gets hot at all.  I think the reason is that it is made up of crushed coral as opposed to crushed rock but my wifi here isn't strong enough for me to check that so if you want to know for sure...you'll have to ask Mr Google yourself. :). At one of our stops (secret lagoon) we actually had to climb through a tiny hole in the rock wall to access the lagoon that is, according to our guide, a combination of fresh and salt water.  I'm not sure about that though as it tasted pretty salty to me (not that I was drinking it!). The magical bonus we got at secret lagoon was that we were the only people in there.  We waited for dozens to leave before climbing in the hole (it's a one way hole) and our reward was that it was just us (only 4 of us in fact)...and we had that whole lagoon to ourselves for a good 5 minutes.  As we were leaving several new groups arrived and we were reminded as we saw/heard them coming of just how lucky we'd been!  On our boat were two other Canadians from Montreal (Edith and Michel) and 3 people from Poland.  Edith and Michel are super nice and may have some accommodation advice for us on Bohol (assuming I can make that happen while I do my homework today).  As we near the end of our trip and after my ocean experience yesterday....any place with a pool will gets bonus points from me. :). But I digress....back to tour A.....  So.... the water is crystal clear and the colour of it changes from emerald green (which is what we saw in Big Lagoon - estimated to be 80+ meters deep), to the barely blue that sits along the edges of those white sand beaches with the coral just below the surface, and of course that perfect aquamarine azure shade that only exists in picture perfect places just like this one.  We visited papaya beach that has that name because it used to be covered in papaya trees but today only 3 papaya trees are left as the coconut palms have edged them out.  This beach is actually one that you can be dropped off at for an overnight camp out.  It would be rustic but kind of magical at the same time.....kind of like being on Survivor for just one night. :). We saw the cliffs where those birds live that people climb up to retrieve their nests for the spit I think cuz they use it as a delicacy for eating. (again...you can check Mr Google if you want more on this). All in all....it is just plain gorgeous and worth a visit if any of you are thinking about it.  They seem to be very conscious of maintaining the integrity of the region (ie: guides are educated and inform their guests about the do's and don't's of visiting the Bacuit), there is a 200 peso/person fee to be allowed to visit the Bacuit, and locals seem to have a real appreciation and respect for the region that is their home.  So even though I had a run in with a jelly of some sort...this is their home too and I came for a visit so was fair game.

Which reminds me of Lynda's attempt to cheer me up last night (and it worked).  Once I seemed to be headed in the right direction and some of my symptoms began to subside and Lynda was feeling like she might be able to go to bed and sleep without worrying about me she told me this little bedtime story (complete with hand gestures) that made me laugh so much it started the sneezing/coughing/runny nose all over again (but it was worth it).  The story goes something like this.....Once upon a time in a land where beautiful white beaches line the shore of picture perfect tropical waters there was a white girl who came to visit the legend that was the Bacuit near the town of El Nido.  That girls name was Lorrie.  Now as it happens, Lorrie doesn't like the open water all that much....she's nervous about what creatures are under its surface as she's had some history with sharks and the like.  In spite of this, Lorrie decided that since she was in the land of the Bacuit...she really must swallow her fears and visit the places that photo journalists dream of.  She was having a fantastic day out on the boat...the tropical breezes were cooling as the boat skimmed across the surface of the azure water .....destination....somewhere magical.....  Lorrie was feeling more confident and increasingly comfortable each time the boat stopped for an excursion.  The water was crystal clear and so surely there couldn't be anything to worry about in that perfect water!  At one particularly long stop where many people were snorkelling, Lorrie met a couple from Manchester and they were having a great conversation standing chest deep in that perfect 'see clear to the bottom' water.  Little did they know that as they stood there visiting another conversation was underway in that same water at the same time.  A group of jellies were wiggling along enjoying the majesty of their surroundings too when one of them spied a sight they'd never witnessed before.  This was a meal that would last their entire colony for a month!  If only they could get there in time before that tender white meat morsel moved!  They urged one another on as they slowly made their way in the direction of this veritable feast and little by little ever so slowly they lessened the distance.  Jelly A called to Jelly B...."come on....you can do it....we're almost there.....keep coming" and Jelly C called to Jelly D "OMG this is gonna be good!"  By the time Lynda got to this part of the story she was laughing as hard as I was and the stress levels had been reduced accordingly and since we all know the end of the story already....I'll just leave it here and hope you enjoyed Lynda's story as much as I did. :)

It is now 24 hours since the stings and even though I'm still stinging (at worst sites) and sneezing like a crazy person....I am certain that I'm on the mend and will continue to move in that direction.  Today is a very quiet day for me....need to give my body some time to recover from yesterday and need to give myself the peace of mind knowing that I'm not going anywhere near the ocean today!  Lynda on the other hand is back out on the water and I'm sure she is loving it.  She headed out for tour B this morning and so it will be another full day of sun, sand, and surf for her and the rest of the folks in her boat.  I'll be happy just to see the photos and hear her stories. :). My job today will be to figure out our next steps.  We were able to get one additional night here at Novie's in El Nido so it will be 5 nights in all by the time we depart.  Not bad from the 2 we originally booked heh?! :). When it is only $45/night and such a great location and really a very comfortable room....it makes no sense to leave too soon.  So....we'll be hitting the road again on the 8th and by the end of today I'm hoping to know by what means and to where we'll be going.  While I'm at it I will book our hotel in Manila for that final night before we fly home too as we don't want to take a chance being stuck on another island and not able to make our flight home!  We've got too many other things on the 'to do' list not to make it back as scheduled. :)

Our power is out and it's about time for me to go in search of something for lunch so I guess I'd better get semi dressed - pretty hard to put a bra on with all these stings in that general area but even more scary to think about all the damage I might do to those who see me if I don't. :)

Till next time,
L & L

P.s.
One of the things you can do for jelly stings is to dowse the affected area with vinegar to kill any still live stingers that might continue to inject the victim with their toxins.  I did that last night for mine and we decided to save the vinegar just in case Lynda came home with stings of her own today.  Fingers crossed that she doesn't!

P.P.S.
Lynda just returned and she is sting free and had a great trip!  She is tired and can hardly wait for a shower so I'll have to wait to hear about her adventures as will you..... :)

P.P.P.S.
Tour B was also AMAZING and Lynda had another great day.  She even hiked up to a lookout at Snake Island (a spit of sand that is only visible when the tide is out) so she could see the views from above.  On that island she even saw the single resident monkey who happens to be very aggressive and so is labeled as dangerous!  The good news is that she didn't look as much like lunch to him as I did to those jellies! LOL. Her boat rides were much longer and across some open water so a little rougher, it was a larger boat and had 5 staff to the 12 guests, and once again she enjoyed a delicious lunch that had been prepared on the boat.  Of those 12 guests two others of them were from Kelowna - go figure!  Small world!

Till next time,
L & L