Guatemala Day 14-16

This weekend, we visited the beautiful Lake Atitlan. We drove to San Pedro then road a boat to Santiago...

I hate walking on stuff like this, but I can proudly say I conquered these docks. Nothing can stop me now!

Some of us were able to ride on top of the boat, so we had a little picnic. I must say, bagels are more delicious when you have a wonderful view atop a boat. 

Dr. Quinn was right at home on the water! 

People standing on paddle boats

Approaching Santiago!

Once we arrived in Santiago, we went to go visit Hospitalito, a private hospital.

In order to get there, we all piled into the back of this pickup truck!

I can't post the video of our ride right now, so for now, enjoy this picture. (More on tuktuks later)

For some reason, I didn't take any pictures of the outside of the hospital, but here's the pediatric patient rooms. It's basically the same as the adult ones, but the furniture is a little lower... 

The hospital room was decorated in artwork from past patients! 

They've developed an eye chart that works for people who can't read. Seeing things like this remind me of my privilege. I'm glad that there are people out there who are more aware of things like this than I am and I hope to become more mindful of these things that systematically discriminate against certain people

They gave us an AWESOME lunch (it was SOOOOO GOOOD) but the highlight was definitely dessert: dragonfruit. I had never seen a dragonfruit before and I didn't expect the color to be so beautiful. And, more importantly, it was DELICIOUS

Another obligatory group photo!

***

We took the same truck back to the docks and we started making our way to Panajachel, which would be our base camp for the weekend...

Some market stalls on our way back down to the docks

These ladies wanted to sell us some fabric. They were pretty persistent and I thought they might jump aboard our boat! They kept yelling and waving at us, even after we had left the dock. As the boats were getting ready to leave, their prices were getting lower and lower, but there was one audacious lady who actually raised her price. HA! They were pretty convincing though because even Dr. Quinn fell victim to their insistence.

Mackenzie. Believe it or not, this picture is 100% candid. She was in the middle of turning her head and I just caught this perfect moment on camera. 

Jaeho and Ariel being Jaeho and Ariel. (Not pictured: Jaeho's infamous selfie stick)

Once we arrived in Panajachel, we put all our stuff away in the hotel and we went exploring. The street our hotel was on was the main touristy street in the town so there was just store after store after store selling various trinkets and souvenirs and handmade things. I ended buying 90% of my souvenirs here and I bartered (in Spanish) very successfully! Oh but as for this photo, this bookstore was across the street from our hotel and I loved this idea: Books "a la cart"

I really have no explanation for this photo... 

We had dinner in a really fancy restaurant with a perfect view of one of the volcanoes (except the clouds...)

Sunset hurray!

***

Saturday was full of adventures. First we took a tuktuk to the Atitlan Nature Reserve and went ZIPLINING!! It was my first time and it was ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. I was a little hesitant about spending so many quetzales, but realized it's actually really cheap compared to other places. So why not. Best 220Q (~$30) I've ever spent. There were 8 ziplines and a surprise obstacle course at the end!

You know what's worse than rickety docks? Rickety swinging bridges OMG But I had to walk across these more than 10x to get to the ziplines. I told you NOTHING CAN STOP ME NOWWWW

While we were there, we fed spider monkeys 

I don't have a lot of pictures from ziplining but this is from afterwards when we hiked to the beach (within the nature reserve). What you see here is what we saw while ziplining except more awesome!

Faith the Explorer

Jaeho the Cowboy

After ziplining, a few of us took a boat out to Santa Cruz. That building there is La Iguana Perdida, a hostel with an awesome restaurant and an awesome view.

My go-to Strawberry-Pineapple Yogurt Smoothie!! 

After a very relaxing lunch, we walked all the way up the mountain and explored Santa Cruz. After being in the tourist center of Panajachel, it was very eye-opening to see a very genuine, local place and observe their daily life. It was also cool to see all these things that I've been researching in person

We even came across a health post (Tier 1 of the Guatemalan healthcare system) 

I didn't want to intrude on people's privacy by taking pictures of the stoves inside their house (something we've talked a lot about in a public health perspective), but I took a picture of the roofs. You can see the smoke coming out of their kitchens. Some have chimneys, some don't.

Instead of going to San Marcos like we had originally planned, we decided to head back to Panajachel and just relax. When we were looking for a boat, they told us 15Q (~$2) per person but we'd have to wait 25ish minutes for the boat to fill up; instead, they offered us the option of taking a private boat (just the 4 of us) for 25Q each (~$3.50). We were okay with waiting and since we were all tight on money, we told them we'd wait. I don't think they were expecting us to say that nor were they expecting the boat to fill up so they just took us all right away for 15Q hahaha We avoided their tourist trap! 

Luckily, we got back to the hotel just minutes before the downpour started. I was on the 4th floor and this is the view!

I sat down with a good book and listened to the rain. All I needed was a cup of hot chocolate!

***

tl;dr I got sick with Chikungunya in Guatemala

So something I haven't talked about at all on my blog was my sickness. But I guess now is as good a time as ever, since I found out I probably had Chikungunya o_o Let me explain: on Tuesday of the first week, I woke up with a really swollen eye and I didn't know what it was from. It got worse and worse. Later that day, I got a headache so I took an Advil but didn't think too much of it. On Wednesday, it got really bad so we went to a clinic and it turns out it was an allergic reaction to a certain type of mosquito that likes to bite eyelids (LOL so random). Anyways, they gave me some allergy medication and I went home. The next day, the swelling had already gone down a lot and I was almost back to normal. I still had a slight headache so I took another Advil. On Friday, when we were going to Lake Chicabal, I didn't take very many pictures in the car because I had such a bad headache. I thought it was from carsickness (I used to get really bad headaches in the car) so I just tried to sleep it off. Saturday, my headache hadn't gone away at all and, on the way to Fuentes Georginas, I just took a Dramamine and just knocked out. Same thing on Sunday. I thought my head was going to split open, but I only took half a dose of Dramamine because I didn't want to be completely out of it like I was that Saturday. Towards the end of the day though, I went back to our rendezvous point early because my head was hurting again and I noticed that I had little red dots all over my arms! What the heck! I pointed it out to Ellie and Dr. Quinn, but it wasn't that dark or anything so we didn't think too much of it. I went home and knocked out because of my headache. Within the next two days, though, it was all over my body and it got REALLY bad. I wanted to fight through it and, not wanting to miss any more Spanish class (I had missed 2 hours to go to the allergy specialist), I put on a brave face and trudged to school. As soon as I saw Dr. Quinn, though, I broke down. At that point, I had had a persistent headache for more than 72 hours and I couldn't really hold it in anymore. We made an appointment with a specialist - he wouldn't be able to see me 'til that evening - so I fought through the pain and tried really hard to pay attention... After Dr. Sanchez's lecture, Dr. Quinn, Ellie and I headed to the clinic (again) and waited an hour and a half or so. We were the last patients to be seen. The doctor told me I had vasculitis, which is normally a very dangerous condition, but that I had a rare form of skin vasculitis and that it could be easily treated by steroids. The headaches, he said, were a side effect from the VERY strong allergy medication that I was prescribed. I was worried because he said it was genetic and could develop into a very dangerous condition BUT that I shouldn't worry at all and just take STEROIDS (pretty heavy duty medication). Anyways, I did a lot of research and the steroids didn't seem too harmful since I would only be taking it for a week. I started taking it and the rash started to go away; I stopped the allergy meds and my headaches started to go away too. Also, according to my research, some forms of vasculitis can be caused by strong medication. Everything was explained. Yay. UNTIL a few days later, Ellie came and told me that she thought she was having sympathetic symptoms because she got that same rash and lack of energy and headache! This weekend, she was talking to Tammy, Dr. Quinn's daughter who lives in Mexico, and she said she had Chikungunya last winter and it was the exact same symptoms with an identical rash. SO, like I said in a previous blog post, although there's no test to see if I actually had Chikungunya, she (and I) are fairly certain that the culprit was not vasculitis, but Chikungunya. And that is the story of my firsthand adventures through one facet of the Guatemalan healthcare system (albeit not the public system).