SAN DIEGO — I remember that the black Howler monkeys screamed indignantly from the dense tree branches above, while we waited patiently at the water’s edge. Time seemed to rust as we waited for the boat to depart. Twenty-five sun burned tourists were eager to begin an eight-hour journey up the muddy shallow river that winds its way through the dense Costa Rican jungle. The group was a smorgasbord of people of all ages, sex, marital status, color, and occupations. While waiting, we became acquainted with each other. I befriended a good looking, trim, 51-year-old fellow traveling by himself. He had just sold his successful janitor service business and retired. He had not taken any of his women friends along, because, he had “no desire to make the compromises on this trip a committed relationship would have required.”
At last, the 70-foot craft was cast off and we were underway. The river was quite narrow. At some places two boats could not have safely passed each other. Sometimes the caramel-colored water was so shallow, that the spinning propeller of the vessel dug into the mud, churning up a belching fart of air and foam. Each time it happened, the craft hesitated momentarily and vibrated until it freed itself of the sucking goo holding it back. One of the crew members remarked, “On last week’s trip the boat had been stuck for eight hours,” until the crew members on a passing vessel were able to help work it free. The entire crew had to jump into the muck and tug on ropes in the strenuous effort. There are Caymans (South American Crocodiles) inhabiting the river, but we never saw any. I kept wondering what the crew members were thinking as they pulled the ropes in the murky water, knowing that unseen meat-eating creatures lurked beneath the surface.
The beauty of the river journey was the isolation. No settlements on the banks and only a few passing boats. The only sounds were exotic birds calling each other and the buzzing of flying insects dancing around the endless flowers and vegetation, gorging themselves on pollen and seeds. The cruise took eight hours, a trip that filled a shopping bag full of senses. Just before dusk the boat docked at a clearing in the jungle, we were assigned simple cinder block sleeping cabins. The interior walls were painted two noxious shades of green, bright lime and dark hunter green, a hideous combination that offended my eyes, like sharp fingernails scratching across a chalkboard.
The next morning fitted with a brand new pair of white canvas sneakers, I boarded the vessel with other trekkers for a 20-minute cruise up river. We disembarked and disappeared into a muddy path hidden by tall swaying horsetail reeds. The tops of the stalks were way above our heads. We squished and slid through the unsure footing, pulling reeds asides like curtains on a theater stage. I sadly knew my sparkling white sneakers would never recover from this outing.
The sun, hiding in the tall grass when we began, soon peeked above the reeds and hurled hot sultry rays like rockets wherever there was an opening, making the walk exceedingly uncomfortable. The 400-foot hill turned out to be an ancient volcano core covered with huge trees .The roots were exposed, growing in and out of any crevice they could grip, like giant anaconda snakes. There was no visible path, and we climbed over tree roots and swung from overhanging vines like Tarzan to the next higher perch of outcrop. Several women had flushed faces and strained looks on their faces as they straddled the giant roots. My chest heaved heavier and my breath faster as we ascended. I became more uncomfortable with every step. I couldn’t wait to get to the top, where hopefully I could recover my breath from the ever more strenuous exertion. Finally, I saw a grass clearing at the top. Half bent over, I gratefully rested my hands on the cross beam of an old signpost I saw nearby and tried to resume breathing more evenly/ Surprisingly it didn’t happen. I couldn’t catch my breath. I was in distress. I knew something was different. All around me people had recovered and were enjoying the vista of the jungle canopy. I continued to hyperventilate and was in a state of mild panic at what was happening.
Ten or fifteen minutes passed, and the group began the return journey down the hill. My friend saw my discomfort and helped me as we descended. He gave me a stout stick he found to give support. Still, I fell four times on the way down. I couldn’t stop my exceedingly hard, rapid breathing. As we reached the bottom and maneuvered through the slippery, burdensome path, I didn’t think I was going to make it. I felt close to fainting. Somehow, I reached the boat, exhausted and dizzy. I couldn’t climb aboard. It took several crew and passengers to get my limp body onto the deck and seated on a bench. Behind me in the next row were a husband and wife who were both doctors. They thought I had heat exhaustion. They told me, “Take a cold shower when we return” to cool my body down, and then I would feel better.
My dear friend helped me to my cabin. I undressed and got into the shower, barely able to turn on the cold water. My chest was still heaving, and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I hung onto the water pipe to keep from falling. A few minutes later my kindhearted buddy came in with an ice-cold coke from the bar. When he saw I was no better, he called in the doctors. They rubbed me down with cold towels and ice for forty-five minutes until the hyperventilation finally subsided and my breath was more even. I was calm but very weak.
While all this was going on the tour officials radioed (there’s no telephone in the jungle) into San Jose, the capital city, and requested an emergency airplane to fly me out to a hospital. They packed up my things and helped me to the canoe. We motored up river about ten minutes to a clearing and a small uneven grass landing strip. About 20 minutes later, a single engine, two-seat Cessna aircraft bounced to a landing and taxied up to the tree where I rested in the shade. With help I climbed into the plane, weak and nauseous. The pilot taxied the aircraft to the edge of the airstrip and prepared for take off. He set the altimeter for forty-five hundred feet (the height above sea level for San Jose where we would be landing).
Being a former pilot, I noticed several round holes in the instrument panel where instruments should be. At the bottom of the panel several wires dangled loose from behind the panel, which was not encouraging. We took off bouncing and bumping from wheel to wheel as the wings dipped from side to side. Two-thirds the length of the runway the pilot pulled the wheel back into his lap and the plane lifted off and cleared the trees with a scant few feet to spare. The green carpet of the jungle below was impressive. I was surprised by the number of postage stamp clearings where farmers had cut the trees for planting or grazing cattle, destroying the rainforest and its oxygen producing engine.
Looking around the cabin of the aircraft interior, I noticed a gas indicator gauge over the bulkhead above the pilot’s shoulder. The needle was flickering on empty. There was another gauge above my shoulder, and this too indicated empty. Panicked I tapped the pilot on the shoulder and pointed to the gauges. “Don’t worry,” he said in perfect English, “They don’t work anyway.”
The flight took 40 minutes and we landed on the vast 10,000 foot concrete and macadam runway expanse of the jet airport. Waiting for us on the taxiway near the middle of the runway was an ambulance with a flashing red light on its roof. I climbed into the rear of the vehicle, assisted by a medic, and lay down on a gurney.
Off we went through the streets of San Jose heading for the hospital. The roughness of the streets reminded me of rural Mexican roads, which I thought were the worst. We bumped and bounced and I flew up in the air. There was nothing to hold onto, and I had a difficult time not landing on the floor. Fifteen minutes into the trip, the vehicle screeched to a halt and the medic flew out of the rear double doors. I didn’t know what was happening. He returned a short time later, helping a young woman into the ambulance who was holding her head in pain, and sat her down on the other gurney across from mine.
She had been in an auto accident a few minutes ago, and we were passing by at the right moment and picked her up. Five minutes later, we arrived at the hospital. I, the American, was immediately rushed to the emergency room. I later found out that the injured woman, a native Costa Rican, was denied entry and had to go to another hospital for treatment.
The emergency room with twelve beds was a busy place. Sick and injured people were moved in and out after they had treatment and were stabilized. A man next to me was having violent seizures. The doctors placed electric paddles on either side of his chest and shocked his body into the air interrupting his malfunctioning nervous system. After a few jolts he calmed down. Another man in a bed across the aisle and myself were the only patients there for extended time. He had been in a ward on an upper floor for several days, getting injections for a goiter on the neck. There was no bed upstairs for him. The only place there was a bed was the emergency ward. I was there for over eight hours.
The nurses and doctors were excellent. They tried to make the patients comfortable. A male nurse painfully took my blood several times and gave me an assortment of mystery pills. I started to feel better the longer I lay there. The only problem was that the bed was a foot too short. Central American’s don’t grow as tall as Yankees, and their standard bed length is shorter. I kept trying without success to get comfortable in any position.
About midnight, I became hungry for the first time in the event-filled day, not having eaten anything since early in the morning. My friend across the aisle was also having hunger pains. I asked a nurse in a combination of pidgin Spanish and sign language if we could get something to eat. A half hour later she came back with a sandwich for each of us individually shrink-wrapped in plastic. It consisted of a piece of baloney slipped in between two pieces of dry white bread. We ate it with gusto, like it was a medium-rare sirloin smothered in onions
An hour later, at 1 a.m., a doctor stood beside my bed and said, in perfect English, “Mr. Spector, have you had a heart attack before this?” I was stunned when she used those words. She said, “You’ve had a mild attack, a minor artery in the back of your heart has closed. It is not life-threatening. We’re sending you up to the cardiology ward for four days of bed rest. The reason you were in the emergency ward for such a long time is the enzyme test takes eight hours. It was the test that showed up your problem.”
The cardiology ward was first class. I had my own glass-enclosed cubicle. Neither of the nurses spoke English, nor did I speak Spanish, but somehow we communicated. All the equipment looked modern and well-kept. After two days of complete bed rest including a mild earthquake rocking the bed to keep things interesting, I was allowed to get up and take a shower. There was only one problem; there were no towels in the ward. Apparently, there never had been any. They came up with a bed sheet to dry myself. (When I returned home, I sent two gross of towels to the department.)
The ward was empty when I arrived. Two days later, a man in his 40s was bedded down in a glass cubicle across the room from me. He was attended with great care by his wife, a gorgeous well-dressed redhead woman with an elegant air about her. She would sit with her hands folded and look at him while he read the newspaper. She arrived early in the morning and stayed till late at night. He hardly paid any attention to her. I asked the nurse what his story was. In our tortured communication the nurse told me, “He was a doctor who was always angry, and that is what caused his heart attack. He thinks he is holy!” she remarked.
After four days in the hospital I was released. I went downstairs to pay the cashier. The entire bill $221 for the hospital stay, plus $100 for the emergency airplane, reimbursed fully by my HMO when I returned to the States.
I took a cab to a hotel nearby and checked in overnight for the flight back to the States in the morning. I was well doped up with beta blockers, which slows a person’s metabolism down to zombie. In my stupor, I remembered my wife wanted me to bring home some Costa Rican coffee. From my hotel window I spotted a large supermarket on the other side of the road. It was a main thoroughfare with six lanes of very fast-moving traffic. I went downstairs in a near trance and crossed the street at the traffic light on the corner. It was a wide street and a turtle would have beat me in a foot race. Half way, across the light turned green and the cars started moving again. I kept plodding across, unable to move any faster to beat the oncoming traffic. In Costa Rica the rules of the road are “don’t stop for pedestrians, avoid them.” Cars whizzed by either side of me. I felt the breeze and saw the blur as they passed, but it didn’t change my pace. I glanced up briefly, turning my head to face the oncoming traffic and beheld a speeding white Volkswagen Beetle hurtling right towards me. I turned slowly away straightening my head in front of me continuing my one-step-at-a-time pace. Apparently, at the last second he must have avoided me, or else I’m writing this from Heaven. Somehow I reached the other side without getting hit, bought the coffee, returned across the street, and made it back to the hotel before the sun went down.
The next morning I flew out on American Airlines. I identified myself as a former AA Corporate manager (I didn’t mention it was 40 years ago), and thus received VIP treatment. They gave me a first-class seat and insisted I use a wheel chair wherever the aircraft landed. I sat next to a retired doctor from Arkansas and his nurse wife. They kindly took my pulse every half hour. We stopped in Guatemala for a drug search of the airplane. I was really taken aback at the stares people gave me as I sat in the wheelchair in the waiting lounge. When we landed in Dallas to clear customs, I was quickly led through, without waiting, into a special VIP lounge until the airplane departed for San Diego.
Back home, my cardiologist said the Costa Rican doctor gave me the exact treatment he would have if my heart attack had happened in San Diego.
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Ira Spector is an author and freelance writer based in San Diego. This selection, with slight revisions, was republished from Spector’s 2011 work, Sammy Where Are You? An Unconventional Memoir … Sort of. It is available via Amazon.