by Joanna Albrecht | Apr 30, 2013 | Super Adventure Life
The flight was long..I wasn’t really able to get much sleep…I don’t think I slept very much for a week actually.
But I finally landed and caught a cab to my mom’s place. My mom was very happy to see me and I was glad to be with her.
When I was at the airport a man mentioned that I should look up someone in Chicago that treats this sort of thing. Chicago is a major place for many things, someone has to know about it. I looked on line and found a specialist who is the director of the Rush Hospital Infectious Disease Center.
I called the next day and got an appointment the next day. The doctor called me back actually which I found really amazing. He was very nice and interested in my case.
My mom and I drove into the city the next day and the doctor confirmed that it was indeed Leish, but we had to get it tested and the next appointment for testing was in a week. He took a picture of it and sent me on my way.
That night my mom started to complain of pains on her side. She said that she might need to go to the hospital so we called the ambulance. That night she was admitted into the hospital.
For the next few days they ran test after test and in the end they sent her home because they just weren’t sure what the problem was.
Everyday I was holding space for my mom and also for Rob who has to take a bus and a train everyday round trip 3 hours to get his treatment. It’s been hard being away from Rob during all of this. I get emotional and sad and it’s not helpful for him…
My mom is home now, feeling better and we are working on a healthy way of eating and living.
Rob has 8 more days of treatment and is feeling tired.
I got tested last week and I find out what species of Leish I have on Thursday. My lesion is healing, which could be a good thing or not depending on what type of Leish I have. Basically if I have Mexicana it will heal on it’s own and I won’t need treatment and if I have Braziliana then I will need treatment. Rob has been getting treatment for it even though they don’t know what kind he has, but in America the CDC won’t release the medication unless the result comes back positive for the Brazillian species.
I have been up and down and have been very thankful for the love and support of all of my friends and family and Rob’s friends and family. I feel like we are supported and loved by so many.
Now all I have to do is start taking care of myself…It’s been easy to put all of my love and focus into Rob and my mom, but now it is time to turn within and start my own healing process….
by Joanna Albrecht | Apr 30, 2013 | Blog
We said our goodbyes to our wonderful new friends and waited for a bus at this bus stop…which we later found out wasn’t a bus stop…I am still not sure what that was, but there was a guy there who I talked to in Spanish and he said to just take a taxi. He then offered us a coke…how nice is that?
We finally flagged down a taxi and headed into the next town.
We got to the next town, but what we didn’t count on was that in order to get across the border to Belize we needed to pay an exit fee for Mexico and an entrance fee for Belize. We had run out of money because we were waiting on someone to pay us from the computer work we had done, so we were stuck. We went to a computer cafe and asked for help from our parents again…
We got more funds and went back to the border. They didn’t take cards so there was some guy with a truck on the side of the road who said he would take me across to the ATM and then bring me back so we could pay and get across. He was nice enough and chatted to me along the way. He said that we should just stay in town for the night, that he knew a place. That seemed really good to me actually because it was getting late and we were so tired. We got the money and got back to Rob who was worried the whole time, understandably so since he just sent his girlfriend off in some random truck with a guy off to who knows where…
We paid and go through and our driver took us to a clean place to sleep for the night. We were so glad to have our own room with a shower and a bed. It was the first time we had our own space alone. That night we walked around the town and found a place to eat. There was a couple there and the man of the couple introduced himself and started chatting us up. He talked to us about love and about how important it is to think and speak positively, but mostly that love is the most important thing there is. He was glad to find other people who were fellow happy loving people.
The next day we tried to figure out the best way to get to Guatemala. We thought that maybe we could take a boat there from where we were, so in the morning we tried to get to the boat. We found out we missed the boat…as we were walking to the bus stop this guy said that he had an uncle who could take us there on his boat, which we thought would be ok…however he was a little sketchy…so we were a bit wary. We got a taxi to this guy’s uncle’s house and the taxi man said not to trust this man, that he was bad news. He said that we should just fly there, that most people fly and it would be much easier and safer. When Mr. Sketchy got back into the car we let him know we were going to fly instead and we brought him back to the bus station.
We were then whisked away to the tiny airport where we caught a plane to San Pedro.
In hind sight I am not quite sure what we were thinking…we should have just taken a bus. It would have taken us longer, but it would have been waay less expensive. Rob and I am a bit blown by the wind when it comes to making plans and this happened to be a spur of the moment by the seat of our pants move…
In an hour we were up in the air and on our way to the island of San Pedro, where we were told we could camp…
Let me tell you about San Pedro…it is the most expensive of the Belize islands and you can’t camp. We get off the plane and get a ride with one of the locals who is a school teacher. She brings us to the only hostel on the island and it is booked up….we are beginning to realize that this was not the best move…
We asked someone who was on the street driving by if he was going into town. We told him we were looking for a place to stay for the night and he said he had a place right there so we ended up staying at the dirtiest, apartment in San Pedro…but at least it was a place to stay and it was inside and had a bed which was a plus.
We went out to the main town that night to catch the sunset, walk along the beach, get some dinner and find internet. The sunset was so beautiful…it was very relaxing there on the island. Many people were on honeymoon or other holiday. We found a restaurant with free WIFI and we sat outside to use the internet. Rob wanted some pie and so I told him to just go order a piece, I mean, how much could a piece of pie be really? It took him forever, but once he came back he said…”Well that was a little bit more expensive than I thought it would be.” Well how much was it? $18 dollars Belize, which is $9 US, but still…wow… Just for the record, it was really yummy. We had to laugh really because for us, trying to live a frugal life, this trip seemed to be a super expensive adventure…we needed to figure out a way to sustain our selves or we were going to get ourselves into trouble…
by Joanna Albrecht | Apr 30, 2013 | Blog
We hopped into the truck and we were off. But first the people who were taking us on this new leg of our journey needed to get paid from the organizers. So we went into town to meet up with them. As it turned out the money was not in the bank yet so we had to hold tight for the night. They put us up in the hotel they were staying at and we were able to have a proper shower and a nice bed to sleep in. We even recorded a video that night talking about our adventure so far. We walked into town that night to get some food and it was deserted…and then we realized…It was Christmas! Every once in a while we would see a big set up of toys for kids and we even saw this little boy in a tiny new kid car.
We got back to the room and had a sleep and then the next day we were on our way to Tulum. The person who owed them money was going to be there waiting for the money to come in, so we might as well just wait for it on the beach. We had already been to Tulum and quite honestly, we were glad to be back. The sands are white and warm and the water is warm, blue and beautiful.
The first night we were there Rob and I slept in a hammock together…now let me let tell you something…hammocks…they have never been my friend…I have never really had a relaxing rest in a hammock…and then here I was in this hammock with Rob…squished into a small half rounded hanging piece of fabric of mostly uncomfortableness…there was no making that hammock work for the both of us…and I love Rob and want to be with him and close to him all the time, but this was where even I drew the line… I remembered there was a hammock outside that a woman said someone could use if we needed it. I slide myself out of the hammock of torture and zipped myself up into the hammock with the mosquito netting outside…I was so very thankful for at least being able to stretch out for a little bit. (as much as you can in a hammock.)
The second day we went walking down the beach and on the way back that night we saw a big group of people and some flashing lights…
We got closer and saw that they all had brown shells on their ankles and they were doing a sacred ceremonial dance, holding hands and all went into the water and came out together. We were swept up in the dance that happened afterwards and we ended up standing in a big group of people. There was medicine man that was talking to everyone in Spanish, so I couldn’t make out everything, but from what I could make out he was saying that now that the energies of the planet have shifted, we need to remember to stay focused in love. We need to remind people to love one another and to stay in that loving energy. Together we will bring the world into a more loving space.
The money was taking longer than everyone thought and people were starting to get stressed out. The person who we were waiting on just wasn’t sure when it would come through, but his girlfriend came to check if we were doing OK. I told her that we were struggling a bit and she brought us some food and some raw cacao beans. I thought that was so sweet! I remembered her from the hotel we stayed at a couple of night’s previous. I remember having a really good talk with her and let her know that everything was going to be ok. That the festival had been really amazing for so many people and that eventually people would get paid and everything would sort itself out. I think she was glad to have someone be kind to her because there were many people a little freaked out about the money situation, but Rob and I really did have the most amazing time and we were very glad for the experience of it.
The next day we were on the road. We were going to go to a place called Palenque, where there was an event called the Rainbow Gathering happening. If we could get there we would have a free place to camp and we would also have free food to eat because everyone brings food to share. We would offer healing and share with people the things we learned from the Synthesis Gathering.
About an hour into our journey the guys who were driving us said that they needed to let us off in another location on the border of Belize because they needed to go through some check points and they weren’t quite sure what was going to happen when we got there…
Our next stop was Corresol….
