Our usual routine is to go for a swim before and after lunch. I swim as far as I feel like across the bay and back to where Ray, who has swum a shorter distance is waiting for me. That routine had served us well until one morning when I waded into the shallows of La Madera beach and felt something puncture my heel. It was not painful so I considered just continuing into the water. I knew something was not right and I was suspicious as to the cause. I told Ray that I had better return to shore and find out what had happened. I walked out of the water and back to one of our favourite beach restaurants, Chinciquira. By that time the puncture had started to bleed and it was somewhat painful. The staff of the restaurant got a dish of water to bathe my foot and a first aid kit with rubbing alcohol to clean my foot. The bleeding eventually stopped but my heel was becoming swollen and red. The pain I was experiencing was certainly manageable, more like a severe bee sting. Ray brought me some Benadryl and others at the restaurant suggested ice to bring down the swelling. I just sat back and relaxed and let the treatments take their course.
The obvious cause was that I had been stung by a stingray burrowed into the sand at the water’s edge. We had been warned that this was the season for stingrays to come ashore to give birth to babies. The advice had been to shuffle your feet as you entered the water to give the stingrays warning to get out of the way. The waves cresting on the shore on La Madera stir up the sandy bottom, obscuring whatever lies below. I consider I got off very easily. The stingray must have been very young and struck me on the back of my bony heel.
It took several hours, but by the time we had finished lunch the pain had subsided. One man from Saskatchewan and a man from Inuvik starting tuning up their guitars. It was going to be another jam session. I had to get some photos today as I didn’t have my camera with me when they played the previous week. I walked back to Casa Azul to retrieve my camera and realized the pain had really gone.
By the time the jam session had finished and I had snapped a few pictures of the two guitarists, I was set to brave the waters once more. I made sure I shuffled into the ocean but there were no more stingray incidents. I was glad because I certainly didn’t want to give up swimming.
Read Fun in Zihua 2016 or Feasts in Zihua 2016 writeups
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