Last weekend was truly a weekend of adventures. But before that, I had an interesting week at Niños Hospital. Like I mentioned in my previous blog, we were seeing the admitted patients. We were able to see the hospital’s long-term EEG machine since a patient needed to be monitored for five days straight. Since we were looking at admitted patients the entire week, it was really interesting to see the progression of this patient on a day to day basis. I was also finally able to solidify my project idea last Friday! After a few weeks of turmoil, I’ve decided to focus on vessel perforation during mechanical thrombectomies for ischemic strokes—which sounds very fancy, but it’s essentially decreasing the risk of breaking blood vessels while trying to remove blood clots in the brain. Unfortunately, Dr. Bogantes says that there’s only one surgeon who can consistently perform mechanical thrombectomies in Costa Rica so it would be quite difficult to get into contact with him, but I think it’ll be really helpful to talk to the other surgeons who have attempted this procedure in the past. It’ll give me insight into the difficulties they encounter and how the devices used can be improved.
The weekend was definitely more chaotic than my week at Niños though… We decided to go to Monteverde to zip-line at Selvatura Park and hike in the Cloud Forest! I have to say, zip-lining might be my most exhilarating experience ever—there is truly nothing like speeding above a valley with the rainforest canopy tens of meters below me. We also walked on the hanging bridges, which were significantly higher off the ground than I expected, and I’ve come to realize that I have an irrational fear of dropping my belongings (even if they’re inside zippered pockets).
Geared up to go ziplining!
Hanging bridge and conquering fears of height
Post-excursion meal: Caribbean beans and rice with chicken and peanut horchata!
The real logistical shenanigans started on Sunday: unlike the day before, where we had a shuttle to transport us between our hotel and Selvatura Park, we had to navigate to the Cloud Forest on our own. This is when we had a rude awakening—there weren’t any Ubers in Monteverde, so not only couldn’t we Uber to the Forest but we also couldn’t Uber back to San Jose! The hotel was able to call us a taxi to the Cloud Forest, but they only took cash—which we were running dangerously low on. But everything worked out in the end! Our taxi driver was willing to be our chauffeur for the day, driving us to and from the Cloud Forest and (most importantly) back to Escazú! And thankfully, we could Paypal him for the final three hour journey. I am forever grateful for the amazing Tico kindness because without our taxi driver Isaac, we really would have been stranded in Monteverde.
Inside the serene Cloud Forest of Monteverde
The white background is a bunch of clouds, I promise.
Next week we’ll be traversing to Limón, and I hope our good fortune during travels will keep up!