Dog Bites, Hospital Visits, and Van Breakdowns

 

So sorry for the delay everyone! I wrote this ages ago but then the van was starting to limp its way along the highways (again), so we decided to get back home as fast as we could. That meant long six-hour driving days  - and delayed updates. 

But rest assured we are alive and well, despite the doom-ridden title of this post!

Since there is waaaay too much to update you on in a single post, I'll get past the drama today and focus on some fun highlights of our return journey in later missives. 

Before I begin, I'd like to share one piece of big news: my podcast - Haunted by CBC's Personally- is coming out Spring 2027. It's getting real folks! I'll keep you posted as the date gets nearer...

But let's get back to our adventures over the last month ...

Recommended tune for this post: Supervan Vacation by 1000mods.

Heading Home

After a relatively incident-free travel to Panama (not counting when I walked into a holdup in a Guatemala, or the ringing nighttime gun shots in Costa Rica), we encountered a series of unfortunate events. Luckily they turned into some pretty fortunate events as well. 

Van Troubles

It all started with our brakes, which we tried to replace in Costa Rica.

Vanny undergoes a brake replacement

Vanny in a very compromising position

Should have been an easy enough fix. Only when the mechanics were replacing the breaks, they cracked the ABS sensor. They also discovered that our tires were wobbling. Seriously wobbling.

We kinda let the problems "ride" as we drove towards Nicaragua. But the screeches and shudders got worse with every Nicaraguan bump and hairpin turn. We couldn't find any mechanics n Nicaragua, so crawled our way to San Salvador in the hopes that somewhere in the city, someone might be able to help us.

The Curious Incident With the Dog in the Night-time...

Our last night in Nicaragua, just before crossing into El Salvador, our van wasn't able to risk the steep hill to Claudia's beautiful farm, where we'd stayed during our ride down to Somoto Canyon. Instead, we stayed in the small parking lot of the family on the top of the hill. They pressed to take us on a tour of the canyon. When we told them we had already done the tour with their neighbour, Claudia, they were not overly happy - with us or Claudia. The vibe from the get-go was strange.

But most awkward of all? The rustic and rather foul-smelling long-drop behind the house, which was the only bano shared by all of us. 

The "incident" happened just as it got dark. I followed the route to the bano around the back of the house, as I'd been guided earlier in the day. At that time, I'd observed only lifejackets and touring paraphernalia lurking behind the house. In the evening, however, the back area was in full shadow, and I never heard or even saw the dog. 

But the dog saw me. I was only a few short steps from the bano when I felt something hit me hard from behind. Then two piercing stings in the back of my leg.

Los cadejos, the dual demons of Mayan folklore. 

The wife of the owner came out and shooed the dog away, and immediately, I thought to los cadejos, the hellhounds of Nicaragua. The white one is benevolent, the black one evil. I suspect I got the black one, because it moved so fast back into the shadows that I never even glimpsed its shadow.

I was in such shock I didn't know what to do. I had Ivan clean the wound and then we went through the motions of an uncomfortable (and reluctant) dinner prepared by our hosts before heading to bed.

It wasn't until midnight that I finally woke up, leg throbbing, and thought: rabies. Which was when I made the mistake of consulting AI (in this case Apple Intelligence on my Safari browser).

Immediately, I was instructed to "put down my phone" and go to hospital and get rabies shot. And then was told such help was over two hours away. And that without the shot, I was clearly going to die. 

I began to panic. Seriously panic. I tried to wake Ivan, but that man sleeps like the proverbial rock and there was no waking him or even turning him over to stop his snoring. And there was no way I was driving two hours when I was the one about to die.

After a half hour I finally thought to google old-school style. That's when I found out that the last incident of human-contracted rabies had occurred in Nicaragua was in 1999. That rabies symptoms generally appear days to weeks to even a year after the incident. That the shot can be administered anytime before symptoms develop. And that there was a clinic 15 minutes, rather than hours, down the road. 

Puncture wounds before the bruising came in.

So, after a fitful wait for the sun to rise, we confirmed that the hosts' dog had been vaccinated and headed into the local hospital where (communicating via Google Translate) a doctor declared the bite a relatively superficial one that didn't trigger rabies protocols. Then she cleaned the wound, shot my arm up with a fresh tetanus booster, and sent me into the adjacent park to fill out a prescription for antibiotics. Yes, I wrote that right  - to a park.

When they told me to go the "park", I thought they meant a tech park, or maybe a medical park. But no, they meant the local playground, inside of which is a taco stand and a pharmacy. Who would have thought?

We were in and out within an hour and a half, and on the road to El Salvador by nine am. And all of it (except the drugs) were free. 

Eddy to the Rescue

Before we crossed the border from Nicaragua to El Salvador, Ivan texted all the mechanics he could with the help of Google Translate. Not one of them wrote back. 

Until finally one did: the only English-speaking mechanic in San Salvador we could find - Eddie. I was a bit wary of him when I saw that he'd sent Ivan a Gif of a bearded man taking a selfie in a bathroom, his bare butt reflected in the mirror. Still not sure how to interpret that. 

But despite the man's obvious love of inappropriate GIFS, Eddie turned out to be a brilliant and very trustworthy mechanic.

View of Eddy's mechanic's yard

To get our van into his yard, Eddie had to repair an ancient jeep, then replace a battery on another car just to shuffle the vehicles and make enough room for Vanny. 

Unfortunately, a mechanic is only as good as his parts, and Eddy said we needed to order replacements from America. Given the current trade issues, this was not expected to be quick.

So we headed to San Salvador to wait out the delay.  

San Salvador Respite

We'd never planned to go to San Salvador, but the city turned out to be a fantastic diversion. The streets were new, clean, and surprisingly safe. We were a short walk from the city's Bicentennial Park (or By-Centennial as they write it), considered the city's "green lung" - a former finca turned park that has over 91 hectares (225 acres) of endless pathways for running, biking, and just plain hanging out.

We ran in the park and worked out on their free exercise equipment nearly every morning, and even spent a whole day - over 5 hours - just hiking its trails. 

A mango-lined path in the Parque del Bicentario .We were told by one Salvadorian that they don't eat mangos, so the fruit are left to rot all over the park trails, leaving a lingering odour of fermenting fruit everywhere you step.

Also, the World Cup was on, and the city offered free game viewing on giant screens at all the parks and malls. 

Big screen TV set up in the Park free for all to watch.

The mall set up for free soccer viewing as well

A few highlights of our city living below. I'll give you the details on our day trip updates in a coming post.

Fine dining at Brutto, just one of hundreds of top-notch restaurants

Selling crabs in the streets by the palace

Our AirBnB pool and avocado tree in the Zona Rosa neighbourhood. The tree would drop ripe avocados into the pool and we would just fish them out and eat them. Seriously good avocados.

View from our balcony.

Surprisingly, the car parts arrived in time - just at double the shipping costs. Thanks, Trump.

All looked good until ... our "new" ABS sensor cracked. This meant another week in El Salvador, waiting for sensor parts. 

So we decided to spend that limbo by the beach. 

The rusted parts of our van removed

It wasn't all bad - or bad at all, really. We got to hang out at Bitcoin Beach, or El Zonte, and eat the BEST papusas in the world. But again - that's in a coming post!

Just a few of our beach hammocks

The second round of parts arrived only a few days late. Still, Eddie warned us not to get our hopes up, said that it all could still go pear-shaped.

So it was a nail-biting hour's drive back to the city, not sure if we'd spend another week in Eddie's backyard. But when we arrived, we found a triumphant Eddie and a (mostly) repaired Vanny. 

Eddy, Vanny, and I, ready to hit the road again.

There were a few repairs Eddie wasn't willing to do, given the parts shortage, but advised us to address them when we arrived in Canada. Spoiler alert: the van made it back, barely, and is now waiting for treatment at Dr. Phil's in Ottawa.

So that's all the update for today, but there's still lots of highlights of our return journey to share, including night hikes in Costa, Lucha Libre in Mexico City, and death-defying via ferrata "extremo" in Monterrey (where you'll get another close-up of my injuries). 

Stay tuned!