A member of my team fell down a waterfall about a week and a half ago, they got some cuts and bruises, which are healing, but it is the knee which is still trouble. So talking with leadership, they decided a trip to Quito to see a doctor would be best. I was asked to accompany my teammate on this trip to work as translator. So yesterday at 11am, we begin to wait for a bus to Loreto, which is where we need to go to buy our bus ticket to Quito. At 11:45am, still no bus has come. From either direction. Finally we catch a taxi to Loreto.
In Loreto, we first go to the bus station to get the tickets and they are closed. So we decide to eat lunch. Then a worker of IncaLink calls us randomly and tells us there is a bridge out and no traffic is getting to or from Quito. He then suggests we take a bus an hour north to a city called Coca which has a good military hospital. So off to Coca we go.
So now we are in Coca with NO IDEA where to go!! We get off the bus and find a taxi. We ask him for the hospital, he asks us Viejo(old) or nuevo(new)? And I was like Nuevo sounds more modern. We will take that one. Now we are at this hospital, and mind you is nothing like those in the States. We walk in, I follow the signs that say Emergencia(emergency). We go in, a doctor sees my team member and immediately tells them to come and sit. So we follow. I explain to her what has happened.
She begins to feel the knee. And compare the good and bad one. And pretty much told us everything we already knew. Probably a torn ligament, but that this hospital can’t go an MRI. But an expert will be back in 4 days so we should return. She gives a prescription, which is free, but when we go to the farmacia(pharmacy), they are out of that pill.
We hang out a while waiting for a call to see if we are even at the right hospital. The military hospital should be more advanced than this. When we come up empty, we decide it is time to head home. We walk around Coca for 30 minutes looking for the bus station. And finally we find one and catch the 5pm bus home. We stop in Loreto to get snacks and decide to eat dinner.
At 7pm we attempt to get home, but there are still no buses or anything. I make friends with an older women who finds us a taxi to get back to Huaticocha. We get home around 8pm and surprise our team. And then tell them all about our adventure in northern Ecuador. Then I play in the monsoon rainstorm that hits and then bed. It was a day that felt like a week within itself. I am mostly proud of being able to travel and translate. And I know there is reason God did not want us to go to Quito this weekend.
