Nov 16th: Friday
Our bus arrived in Santiago sometime around 8:30 in the morning. When we unloaded, we spent a good half hour searching for a restroom to freshen up and change before we jumped on another bus that was to take us to the airport for our flight to Rio De Janeiro.
Our original plan seemed simple enough, take the bus back from Pucon, then a bus back from Valdivia, then a bus to the airport, flight to Rio De Janeiro, then a cab to the hostel. Well, today’s first hang-up would be that the bus back from Valdivia dropped us off at a different bus terminal than the one it left from. Also, where there isn’t a bus to the airport. So we exited the terminal, got our bearings, and then headed for the nearest subway station. From there we knew how to get to the proper bus terminal. When we arrived at the proper terminal, we only had to wait about 15 minutes for the bus to the airport which was nice. Checking in for our flight was fairly simple, and we had a couple hours to kill, so we stopped into Ruby Tuesday’s (?!) for some lunch. They had the idea down, but the food wasn’t so hot. I got the alfredo pasta with grilled chicken and broccoli. I’m not sure how they managed it, but everything tasted exactly the same. Bland. I added a bunch of pepper and salt, but then all I could taste was the pepper and salt.
After lunch we found a place that had Internet access for sale and I jumped online to figure out which hostels we would be staying at. I say ‘hostels’ because I wound up booking two different ones. Our first night would be off of the Copacobana beach and then the next three nights would be off of the Ipanema beach. I also read online that the cab far to the hostel should be around R$50, so I was ready to go.
We boarded our plane, and was off.
The flight was a little over 5 hours long, but was fairly comfortable. They even gave us a meal with metal utensils (amazing!).
When we landed, it was around 8pm (time-zone difference). We exited the plane and then went down stairs to grab out bags that we had to check. Lan (the airline) is a little more strict on size of bags you’re allowed to carry on. The line to get through customs was ridiculous, but the guy that checked out our passports was awesome. He stamped my passport and then threw the horns \m/ and said “Pantera!” I was beginning to like Brazil.
The next stop was to get a taxi. As soon as you leave customs, there’s a hoard of taxi people and stands trying to get your business. I went to one cab company (figured it was safer than haggling with some independent cab driver), and asked how much to Copacobana. They quoted me R$72. In the end, they agreed to my R$50 and we jumped in the cab to head to the hostel. As we got closer and closer to Copacobana, the city became more and more dodgy. By the time we got to the hostel, it was safe to say that Copacobana at night is a bad neighborhood. Reminds me of walking around Detroit at night, or riding through BedStuy, not too much fun. We checked into our room and went upstairs to drop off our things. The room was crazy. Felt like a giant dorm room filled with Freshmen.
Here is the beginning of where I thought I actually felt I had a chance of not leaving Rio. Not because of the neighborhood, but because of my heart.
As I was helping Nicole make the bed, I stared to feel a sharp pain in my chest, where my heart it. I couldn’t take full breaths, as it would intensify the pain. I’ve had this happen before, but normally it goes away after a couple minutes of relaxing. So after making the bed, we walk to a lounge area and I just sit down for a while. After a few minutes, I notice the things weren’t getting better, in fact, they were getting worse. I became very light headed, dizzy, and tunnel vision. I gave myself about 60 seconds before I was to pass out. So I quickly told Nicole what was going on, and we walked down 6 flights of stairs to the entrance area to call for an ambulance. Things were bad, and I seriously felt like I was about to have a heart attack, and in Rio of all places…not so cool. They called me a cab, and was taken to a local private care doctor that spoke english. Took the cabbie about 10 minutes to show up, and while we were in the car he sat there bickering with the hostel lady for another couple. I was out of energy, so I couldn’t yell at them. I just had to wait. When we got dropped off at the private care place, the guy wouldn’t let us inside the building. Nicole had to negotiate with the guy for about 10 minutes just to get inside. Once inside, we had to wait for the doctor to show up. So I pleasantly waiting in the waiting area in a place where there weren’t any sharp objects around, and made sure Nicole had all the contact information of people back home, my health history, and that she needed to try to catch my head, and not my body, to keep it from hitting the floor if I were to pass out. Then I just waited and watched Seinfeld. I was pretty proud of myself for how calm and collective I was considering I felt there was a good possibility I was about to die.
The doctor finally showed up, and after a brief once-over, he suggested a cardiograph to check out my heart. I was expecting the little white pads with wires, but nope… not here. He used these things that looked like jumper cables, and attached them to my ankles and writes. Then he used this little suction cup thing and placed it on different places around my heart. When her was done, we went into his office for a review. Turns out that my heart is fine. The culprit, an inflamed muscle that is in the same area as the heart. It’s from straining while trying to carry my backpack and Nicole’s back pack all on my right shoulder. He wrote up a prescription that was to help bring everything back to normal. A wave of relief washed over me. I was fine =).
The next fun task was to get the drugs from a 24 hour pharmacy around the corner. Lets just say, that walking around Rio (Copacabana area) sometime around midnight, not being able to breath or move quickly, and having Nicole with me, wasn’t the best of situations. The neighborhood reminded me of Harpo’s at night, except without the concert crowd around. After a little bit of wondering, I found the pharmacy, got the drugs, and then jumped in a cab to head back to the hostel. When I arrived, I took the drugs, and then added a bit of Zanax to the mix to calm the nerves. After that, I don’t remember too much.
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