¨Happy Days Bonita¨

Tuesday evening we arrived in Uyuni, scampered accross the street to our icebox hostel and booked our tour for the next day. The three of us finally decided we would only spend one day in the Salar so we could make it to Peru before the end of our travel time. Wednesday morning we hopped into our 4WD vehicle with a nice Bolivian family (what a catch! no Europeos for us!) and as a last minute gesture of friendship we made the entire group wait an extra five minutes for Amy to run into a convienience store to buy a bottle of Singani(the bolivian equivalent of vodka) and Sprite so we could secure our friendship with the Bolivian family (a few of which were from Cocha!) with drinks over llama bits at lunchtime.

We start out at the very first touristy spot (the train graveyard? who knows) our new bolivian family invites us into ALL of their family pictures (and we knew we were in). After an innumerable number of touristy stops at every possible location to weasel money out of us for more items created from salt, we arrived at the Isla de Pescado (Translation:Fish Island) at this point we´re definately in the middle of nowhere. hours of driving and we´ve paused at the only real land visible in hundreds of miles. sweet. So while our nice driver is preparing lunch for us, and the family is perusing the mountain of cacti, we step out into the Salar... pure salt for miles, to take funny pictures and drink singani. After about 20 minutes we have the brillant idea to jump in the air as mariah takes pictures from the ground...we succeed in making it appear as though we´re flying! Next thing we know, Steph is grabbing her arm, telling us that she can´t move her shoulder and it hurts a lot. The next minute, Steph has come to the conclusion that her shoulder is dislocated, we feel it...and uh. sure enough, that bone was out of place. The silly thing is, she just jumped...didnt even fall. the force of gravity was the culprit here...and perhaps the wildly flailing of arms.

Act 2: Where´s a good doctor when you need one.
We returln to our bolivian buddies and fill them in on whats happened, and that we need to find a doctor, hospital, whatever, quick. Immediately our Bolivian counterparts are convinced that its the frigid cold thats dislocated her arm, and insist on bundling her up despite her protests of pain at being touched. After everyone finished their nice llama lunch our driver heads towards an even more rural village, next to a giant volcano. we pass over the worlds most horrific roads that jerk stephanies dislocated arm into an even more aggrevated state and finally arrive at a three room ¨medico¨ (we´re not sure of his credentials). Stephanie informs him that her left shoulder is dislocated and he proceeds to examine her right shoulder extensively for about 5 minutes marvelling that anything could be wrong...until we point out to him that he is looking at THE WRONG SHOULDER! at this point, we feel we´re in the presence of real medical genius...and more or less very concerned. Cut to the chase: he says he cant do anything, that steph has to see a specialist, proabably needs surgery, sticks her with some pain medication and sends us off to the nearest city, Uyuni, to see what we can find.

Chapter 3: Rephrase...Are there any doctors at all?

We arrive in Uyuni, drop off the very very forgiving bolivian family, by now invited to lunch at their place when we return to Cocha, and head to the hospital. We are promptly informed that there are no doctors available who can help Stephs shoulder, and our only solution is to put her in a cast and send her on the night train to the next major city to try her luck there. So we wander around town, show up at someones house who says they are a radiologist, and they take us in, and informally take an xray in the front room...uh...yes...its definately dislocated.

We return to the hospital and are greeted by a man in a nice puffy jacket who appears to be preparing to give steph anesthesia to relocate her shoulder. We later find out, he was just walking around town, enjoying the evening, and happened to hear there was a tourist with a dislocated shoulder, and thought hed show up to see how it was going. He was a doctor, and the only person in the town... or within 7 hours of the town that could do it. We didnt ask any questions...so relieved this is even possible, and Amy promptly runs out with the prescriptions for shots and anestesias needed for the proedure from the local pharmacy.

They put her under, and next thing we knew, Steph is waking up, groggy and full of interesting insights..such as ¨Happy Days Bonita¨ and ¨My Shoulder is back in its hole, My shoulder is back in its home, Mi Hombro esta en su casa!!!¨ While Steph was still experiencing double vision, she commented to her nursing staff, ¨Hay cuatro gringitas alla!!(There are four white girls over there!!!)¨ referring to Amy and Mariah. In the end, her jovial nature served as a mood lightner and bonding experience for all involved.

Scene 4: End of the Night, No taxis in sight

At this point, its about 11pm and we had bought tickets to return to Oruru on the midnight train. We pay our bill (only 65 USD for employing the entire hospital staff, and for all medications and anesthesiologists etc.) Since we were so pressed for time and (and just want to get out of this town) at this point, we simply couldnt afford to miss it. Since Uyuni is such a small town, one would think there wouldnt be a problem, however, when we asked about getting a taxi to the train station from the hospital, there wasnt really a response....the nursing staff moved outside and began whistling in the empty street and shouting ¨TAXI¨. thats it. after a half hour of this, somehow, God only knows, a taxi meandered by and arrived at the train station just in time to jump on.

And that, friends.. is our story.
Stephanie now has use of only one hand, and thus our updates for a while, will be collaborative.