March 1, 2008
Day 885
An Orchid.
This morning I met a retired guy named Rick from Maine, and he introduced me to the orchid museum next to my hostel. I never really paid attention to flowers before, but the guided tour was actually interesting. There was the orchid that only lived one day, the colorful butterfly orchid, and a bunch of others that used various sneaky tricks to get insects to pollinate them. The Canadian kids in my group weren't so interested, and resorted to burning stuff with their magnifying glasses to pass the time.
My bus finally left in the afternoon and dropped me off at the intersection with the main highway. While I was waiting for another bus to pick me up, a motorcycle with two people on it pulled up to the busy intersection and began turning left amidst lots of traffic. Just as the driver was easing into his lane, a car started turning left from the other direction, but didn't see the motorcycle and smashed into it. The driver flipped through the air and landed on the car's hood. It looked pretty bad, but he was able to walk to the side of the road under his own power.
The emergency response was impressive. Within one minute, twenty people surrounded the passengers to see if they were okay. Within five minutes, a police car showed up. Within ten minutes, the ambulance was there. And after fifteen minutes, the passengers were on their way to the hospital and the road was completely cleared of debris. The driver, who was wearing a helmet, broke his nose, and the passenger, who was not, didn't look injured. It was scary to watch, but at least there were no major injuries.
A few minutes later, my bus to Liberia showed up, and the scene of the accident was left behind in my memories. Liberia was a small city about 80 KM from the border with Nicaragua. A big party with loud fireworks was going all night, but I went to bed early so I could get on the first bus out of the country tomorrow.
The photo album for this entry is here.
