Beeeeez!

Although a picture is worth a thousand words, I already posted most of my photos on Facebook with commentary and don’t want to retype everything. One quick story remains untold, however. This weekend I escaped Managua to go to Leon, colonial city of a thousand churches in the Northwest of the country. I arrived cheerful to be alive (the highway is only two lanes so everyone passes each other at every legal although not necessarily safe opportunity which makes things interesting) and ready to explore. About five minutes from my hostel, I was taking pictures of the main basilica when I felt something fly into my foot. I noted that it was stuck between my toes and then registered some pain. I scooped the offending large, black, fuzzy bug out of my sandal and gimped over to a bench to discover that there was still something in my big toe. I wasn’t swelling but I asked a family where the nearest pharmacy was so I could get some tweezers or something.  (I’m sure the lovely family from Leon is telling their own story about a weird limping gringa who took her shoe off in the middle of the street.)

In the pharmacy, I recounted my story and a college-aged girl who was also buying something immediately bent down and took off my shoe. She asked the woman at the counter for a stool, some anaesthetic and a tweezer. At this point, I started to stammer out a “who are you and why are you touching my sweaty feet?” The pharmacist, in the meantime, was making it absolutely clear that I would be the one paying for all these supplies. Anyhoo, my savior who turned out to be a nursing student removed the stinger, bandaged me up, and left. I didn’t even have time to invite her for a juice. The pharmacist thought it was an Africanized bee and the nursing student said a hornet. I think it was an ordinary bee, y’know, cuz I didn’t die or get swarmed.

The funny part, besides the efficient counter-side service, is that I didn’t know how to say stinger so I basically told these ladies that a bee had left its backside in my toe. (It’s aguijon just in case).

Post-pharmacist I went to get lunch and I told the waitress about my ordeal and she brought me dessert first because I deserved it.

Also on this trip I discovered dragon-fruit ice cream. And most everything in Leon was closed.

The scene of the crime

My lunch spot: Los Picharditos.