Ferry me home !

Manuel Antonio: been there, did that… last weekend! After a movie night with the girls Saturday night, we woke up early Sunday for a day trip down to Manuel Antonio National Park. We took the earliest bus down, ate breakfast before hitting the park, then hiked our way to the waterfall and later various beaches before taking the last bus back to San Jose. We saw various monkeys while in the park (the ones down there are known for their thievery) and were able to spend a couple hours taking in the sun at Playa Gemelas and Playa Manuel Antonio. Playa = beach if you didn’t know! (photo alert!) A full, but very fun day exploring a new place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About 10 minutes before leaving for work on Monday our boss asked Jhalak and me if we wanted to take a trip for the week, and if so, to get packing because we were leaving soon. We of course said yes, and ran to our rooms to get together our bags for a week of travels around Guanacaste. The Guanacaste province is on the west coast of Costa Rica, so it took us a couple of hours to get there Monday, and we stopped for lunch in Puntarenas on the way. Ceviche + patacones = delicious! We primarily had Ebaises to visit, and with their closing time at 4pm, it was mostly just a day of travel after getting all the reports printed at Meditek in the morning. Our first hotel was in Cañas on a wildlife refuge! While we didn’t walk through the refuge, we did see an agouti playing in the woods on the way to breakfast the next morning. We went up to Uvalde on Tuesday to both the hospital and Ebais nearby for vital machine preventative maintenance. These GE machines have inputs for blood pressure, pulse, oxygenation, ecg heart rhythm, and body temperature. Our job basically consists of wiping down the machine and then using the patient simulators we have (from Fluke biomedical) to ensure the machine is taking accurate readings in various intervals for each measurement and that the alarms are going off in appropriate situations. After work we had a bit of time before sunset so we went to Tenorio Volcano National Park to see the Rio Celeste. While at the first checkpoint (waterfall) it started POURING. Since we were already drenched it didn’t seem to make much sense to stop so we went on to the overlook (too cloudy to see the volcano unfortunately) and the river where the normal water starts to turn bright blue due to the high mineral concentrations. All in all, 4 miles in the pouring rain in our work shoes… but the views were worth it! (photo alert!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday was a more chill day even though an extra clinic was added to the list, and we were able to make our way to Coco Beach in the afternoon where we’d stay for the next couple nights. At dinner we were able to catch the history-making soccer game with Alajuela vs. Cartago. Cartago’s win in the final was their first national league championship win in 81 years– wow. Thursday was a busy day running around to 4 different clinics to do more vital monitor checks. (photo alert!) After a long day of work we were able to change and head to Playa Hermosa to relax before watching the sun set. (photo alert!) The weather was beautiful, probably making up for the soak we got on Tuesday, and it was a nice end to the day… until every single mosquito came out the second the sun set (very unfortunate). After getting back to the hotel, we showered up and Jhalak and I filmed a video describing our experience so far (in Spanish) for the general meeting with all of Meditek scheduled for today. Fortunately, the meeting occurred while we were driving back, so we didn’t have the service to be able to watch our video played for the whole company! #win Thursday night was some yummy sushi and gelato before getting to bed for the early day today. After a quick breakfast this morning we hit the road to get to Jicaral, where we were expecting one preventative vital monitor and one broken pressure machine. The vital monitor was correct, but there were seven broken blood pressure machines, all with the same issue: a burnt membrane. The membrane is what connects the buttons pressed by the user to the internal system, so when humidity or water gets in the device and damages the membrane, it is unable to correctly process the inputs, and in the case of these devices often nothing happens upon pressing the buttons. After confirming burn marks on all membranes, we switched it out for a device with an intact membrane which further proved that the membrane was the issue at hand. The clinic will be ordering those in soon I presume, but we had to run after double checking everything to catch our 12pm ferry back to Puntarenas. This cut off a significant amount of time driving and gave us a fun, new experience! We ate a late lunch/early dinner upon arrival back into San Jose and then parted ways.

Let me tell ya, a warm shower and my familiar bed are feeling pretty nice right now after a week away. Tomorrow the crew is planning to head up to Irazu for some hiking (and the views of course), so I will update you next week on that adventure. Until next time, pura vida!