Thursday, February 12, 2009

memory: slippery when wet...

Loiza, Puerto Rico

The drive from Loiza to San Juan in northwest Puerto Rico is a beautiful one. It's a tiny 2-lane road lined with natural beaches and local food stands. I suggest giving yourself plenty of time for a leisurely drive to enjoy the beauty and frequent stops in the sandy pull offs. It was at one such random stop that my friends and I discovered a gorgeous beach with no people and cool rocks along the water's edge.

This is where our fun trip took a sharp turn. Maybe it was the Gasolina (a strong Puerto Rican tasty beverage) that was consumed that morning or just a complete lack of worry that comes with being on vacation. But for whatever reason we decided to walk along the rocks to get some cool shots (and we did). To say that was a bad idea is putting it mildly. As it turns out, flat rocks don't mix well with shallow water (a thought that may have seemed more obvious had we consumed less of said tasty beverage). It was comical really. One of my comrades slipped and fell on the rocks. Hilarious, right? Well the first fall was (save for the fact that her camera lay at the bottom of a mini rock cavern filled with water). It was the second, or maybe it was the third, that done her in. She ended up crawling out of the water.

It still seemed quite funny, she was laughing, we were laughing. All was good right? Au contraire mon frère. It was actually your's truly who noticed first. Both of her knees were bloody, but that wasn't what made me stop laughing and tell the other girls to look at her knee. My friend looked at me too afraid to look down and see the damages as all our other friends gasped in surprise. Her knee had already swollen to the size of a softball.

Alas, this lead to a completely new adventure: the local hospital. But first we had to find it. It felt like we were in an old episode of The Benny Hill Show, as we drove around not knowing where we were going. We finally ended up at what we thought was an emergency clinic, which turned out to be a completely different kind of clinic (for females only if you know what I mean). Fortunately, they were able to point us in the direction of the 'real' hospital. Where the only person who spoke english was a big burly guard. But that is a whole other story. In the end, my friend felt the results of our misadventure for the rest of the trip. But she healed. And now we lood back and laugh at our crazy day in Loiza.

So what did I learn from this experience?
Beware of hidden dangers that are concealed behind a beautiful facade. Sure.
Remember, rocks are slippery when wet. Of course.
And above all, Gasolina and the beach do not mix. :)


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