The Aftermath

When the boat took me ashore, I was helped out and my head was all over the place. Adrenaline was pumping through my body and everything seemed at once so sharp and yet a blur. I couldn´t understand anything. Every Mexican on the beach was crowded around me and I just stood there, barely able to, bleeding and confused. I could hardly talk. They asked me what I wanted to do. I didn´t know. I wanted to be looked after. I wanted to cry. I wanted to lie down. My body ached and hurt so much I didn´t know what to do. I tried to sit but was in so much pain. And yet I felt like laughing. I thought I was dead. And now here I was, just SO ALIVE that I could feel the shooting pains all over my body. I breathed so deeply.

I was hoisted on to the back of a motorcycle by some of the men who had come in the boat. My feet felt like they were shattered with broken glass but they were not bleeding, I couldn´t understand why. And then just as we were about to ride off, I saw Olivier running towards me. I hugged him like he was my lifeline and cried and cried. He was crying and telling me he was so proud of me. I had known him only a matter of days and yet as he was the only ´familiar´ to me in that context, he felt SO familiar. And also because he had been there throughout the entire ordeal. He climbed on the quadbike too and we rode to a nearby house. I couldn´t walk and so he carried me in to the courtyard of the house where loads of people crowded around my bleeding, limp body as I sat in the middle on a chair. That´s when Sinah and Marley arrived. I felt so intensely warm when they did. They were both also so pumped with adrenaline and in disbelief that I was sitting there alive. Sinah was shaking and crying and very distressed. A man began taking care of my wounds. With a hose over my head, he washed all the blood off me and then began treating and bandaging my wounds. I have no idea who he was. I couldn´t think straight and kept making jokes and laughing so hard. I laughed so hard and cried. Especially when someone began taking photos of me. For the local media, he said. Someone then took my email address and asked me if I could return for an interview. I couldn´t think and could only chainsmoke.

When I was ready to leave, Olivier carried me back on to the quadbike and we were given a ride back to our hostel. This is where I complained about my feet and Marley and Olivier took a look. The situation was dire. There were hundreds of small but sharp and deep and excrutiatingly painful spines from sea urchins and bits of coral lodged in to my feet. Olivier and Marley set about removing them with a penknife and needle (sterilised with a lighter) and a torchlight as it was pitchblack dark night now. Having my feet carved up, I was screaming and crying and laughing. Thankfully I had Sinah by my side to squeeze my hand and laugh and scream and cry with me. It was so surreal. People were handing me shots of Mezcal. Everyone was asking me questions, YOU´RE THE GIRL THAT DROWNED?! WE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! etc. Everyone wanted to know how my mind was thinking on the ocean. I struggled to speak, adrenaline still clouding my thoughts and throbbing all over my body. I was in too much pain so eventually the boys decided to give it a rest for the evening and to continue again in the morning in the light and with clearer heads.

Olivier carried me on to the beach and there the four of us sat, confused and talking. We talked all night. Sinah was extremely troubled and upset by what had happened. She was shaking and crying and disturbed and broken. However I could only see the experience as a positive thing. I was fucking alive! I had been saved! I felt so effing lucky and so spiritual and so in love with the earth, with life, with nature, with Mexico, with my friends in Mazunte, with my friends and family at home and all over the world, with myself. I felt like I had been born again. I was in pain and yet I could not feel it. All I could feel was the breath rushing through me, the electricity at my fingertips, the love. The experience was my rebirth. It was traumatic and fucked up but I had come out alive, healthy (mas o menos), and with more thirst for life than ever before. I felt intensely happy and wanted to share my thoughts with my friends. Marley and Olivier responded well and we discussed the entire experience at length. It had been fucking scary and intense for them too and they wanted to share their horror for the situation and also their relief. We had a beautiful night of sharing.

The next morning, Sinah expressed that she could not stay there. Mazunte now haunted her because of the experience and she wanted to go back to Puerto Escondido where she felt safe and could mentally recover. I said I would stay with Marley and Olivier and they promised to look after me. And they did, as best they could. That whole Tuesday they stayed by my side, carried me if I needed to go to the bathroom, fed me, attempted to remove more of the thorny bastards cutting my feet. At the small rustic hostel we were staying at, La Isla, people swarmed around me all days wanting to hear my story. I was offered nineteen hundred different suggestions of remedies for my pain, including: painkillers, hash, putting my feet in babyoil-filled socks, putting my feet in saltwater, putting my feet in a bucket of water with a special plant that should refresh them, homeopathic pills, holding a rosequartz for calming strength, opium, mezcal, antiseptic creams, tiger balm, herbal teas... By the end of the day I hadn´t moved from the same two white plastic chairs and I passed out that evening, exhausted from everything and drugged up like hell. I could not take the pains and aches all over my body, my wounds were so deep and pink and raw and looked like they could easily get infected and my feet were broken, I couldn´t walk. I was getting frustrated with depending so heavily on Marley and Olivier and my pride was taking a beating. Particularly as there seemed no end to my pain. Not here, with no medical treatment. But how could I get myself on a bus to elsewhere? I felt down and numb. Enrique, the hostel manager, offered to drive me to the nearest and only health centre in Mazunte the next morning as it closes at midday. I felt happier, tomorrow I would be treated and in a couple more days I would be on my feet again.

Claire, Sinah & Sara

The next morning my body ached even more and I struggled to hoist myself out of bed. However I felt ok because I was going to go to a health centre. Enrique drove myself and Olivier there but when we arrived it was closed with no signs as to any reason why. Enrique asked a neighbour who simply replied that it might be open tomorrow instead. This is rural Mexico. This is Mazunte.

We drove back to the hostel and I felt utterly deflated. I didn´t know how much longer I could do this. Relying on Marley and Olivier just seemed so UNFAIR to them. I wasn´t getting any better. I didn´t know when I might be able to repair. I was depressed and began to cry - real, sad, unstoppable tears. I felt lost, isolated and alone. I felt broken and beyond repair. I was still so exhausted. How could I heal psychologically when I could not even heal physically?

I climbed in to a hammock and fell asleep.

Nurse Katrina

I later opened my eyes and saw five, beautiful, shining, caring and FAMILIAR faces standing over me. Sara, Claire, Tyler, Katriina and Sinah. Confused, I blinked several times. What are you guys doing here?! ¨WE´VE COME TO TAKE YOU HOME!¨ When Sinah had left Mazunte the morning before, she returned to our friends in Puerto Escondido. There she arrived a crying, hysterical mess and told them about my accident and what had happened and how she couldn´t handle it and was too upset and broken and didn´t know what to do. Then they all resolved to come to Mazunte to ¨rescue¨ me and bring me back to Puerto where they could look after me and help me get the medical attention I needed. I was so overwhelmed and emotional. When you travel alone and things fuck up you feel more alone than ever. You feel stupid for having CHOSEN to travel alone. You realise your own limitations and how sometimes you really do need people. You want your friends and family at home to take care of you. But you only have yourself. So when people who you haven´t known for very long go WELL out of their way to come and save you and look after you, it is the most beautiful feeling. My faith in the strength of human kindness has deeply intensified.

Angels!

Patrick, Marley, Sara & Kyle

So I took a bus back to Puerto with them, Marley came too but Olivier decided to stay in Mazunte. When we got back to Puerto, my friends showered me with love, care and affection. They listened to my story and cried. Then they helped me. Over the course of the next few days they each did their bit. Daniella, the hostel owner drove me to the hospital and Sinah sat with me as the doctor there operated on my feet with only local anaesthetic, which apparently my body rejected. I felt everything. I was told I would have to stay in Puerto for another week and rest and recuperate on antibiotics. No alcohol, no going to the beach, no dancing, no stressing my feet, no fun. Thankfully, the Hostel a la casa already felt like my second home and I loved everyone there so I couldn´t have been sentenced to a better place! Each day, Sinah the strong-minded and big-hearted German would cook dinner for all of us and make sure that I fed. Sweet and gentle Katriina from California bathed me with a sponge, carefully avoiding my wounds but ensuring that I kept my dignity. Hilarious and cute Sara from Chicago washed my hair for me. Claire, the funny and honest Brit who has been badly ill herself with a kidney infection, talked to me about my pain and dependency on others and told me to not let my pride get in the way and that sometimes I really can be a bitch if I dom´t feel like smiling. And Tyler the heartbeat of A La Casa, the Canadian who runs the show, would fetch me saltwater baths for my feet. And each day, someone would sit with me at all times when everyone else would be on the beach to keep me company.

Olivier

It has been a beautiful week and I am so lucky to have met such caring and wonderful and fun individuals. I feel truly touched by their friendship. It has been a week since I returned to Puerto and I am healing. I can walk on my feet now. My wounds have scabbed over and will soon be (sexy) scars with one helluva story. I have my doctor´s apppointment tomorrow whereby I am hoping that I will be told that it is all good, I am healed and can move on with my travels. As much as I love Puerto Escondido, I have been here far too long! The Oaxacan coast has broken, healed and changed me. And I love it!

Peace out,
Anetta x