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Published: April 8th 2017
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Realised now out of shock that Cathy was bitten twice, hip & lower ribs, me once, lower ribs. What an awful night. The dogs were barking all night & we were restless not just because of our sore wounds but reliving the nightmare of the attack. This could be a very sweary blog but I’ll resist...maybe
I forgot to mention that whilst we were waiting in the hospital yesterday, a lady who had come in with her ancient mum started talking to me/us...we gestured that we didn’t understand. She took this as clue 1 to carry on. I became so fed up with her I got my phone out, switched on roaming data, typed into Google translate “ We have no scooby doo what you are saying, sorry” She read it, now in Portuguese, & took it as clue 2 to shift into overdrive, talk more with gestures & pissed me off even more. Oops, sorry! More gestures from me, more Spanish... I was tempted to type in “Are you a mad woman, a trained pain in the arse or are you seriously winding me up, go away!” Now she shifted a gear, more & more incomprehensible chatter, so we
both just looked away & totally blanked her. I was turning into Basil Fawlty...She got the message & wandered off....what fun. Then we were called into the minor ops room, where someone else was being treated. Thankfully the patient spoke excellent English, helped the nurse with our problem then asked us to wait outside at which point the lady from the police arrived...always something to write about in a blog, at least for us!
Off we go, the ladies on reception being very kind. We tell them where we might be going, but first make phone calls to our insurance company. Very sympathetic, passed to another service & off we go. Dropped into the local pharmacy for our antibiotics & the pharmacist knew of the attack, they obviously have very efficient jungle drums. Decided to go to another affiliated site as the last one. The scenery was wonderful....we passed through forests of pine that had tall trunks but branches spread out like oak. Together & from a distance they looked like an enormous broccoli forest. Then the land became more infertile & more sandy & back to eucalyptus. A very pretty coastline.
Got to our site which was
enormous & in a pine forest, got sorted, started cooking & the police (GNR) turned up! I felt like The Jackal but caught much more quickly! They explained as best they could that we had to report to the GNR office on 19th April in the town where we were treated - 150 miles back. Oh you think so, no we won’t be doing that thank you. Also you have to go to get a medical report tomorrow in Santiago do Cacem at 9.30am. Mmm, how far is that I ask. 100 km (60 miles) she said. Not going there either said I. Please sign this paper. No said I, but drive me back to reception, we’ll have the lady explain better & we’ll decide. OK. The GNR were very pleasant & it wasn’t an argument. Drove off in the police car with our neighbours clearly thinking I’d been nicked. Turns out Santiago was nearer, but still 25 miles & the lady said the hospital is on the outside of town & we can park Billy. Regards going back North on 19th she reckoned we could telephone them. So, back in the police car – released on bail – signed
the papers & off they went & we carried on cooking.
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