Testing a New Medicine – Literally Butthurt

Throat trouble

I mentioned fever in my last post. Luckily it was a short thing, but after it went away my throat really started hurting. On Monday it got so bad I couldn’t sleep much and my ear started bothering me too. Tuesday I decided it was enough and went to see a doctor. After some waiting at the hospital, I did get to see a doctor and he only needed a quick look in my mouth to see that there was definitely need for antibiotics.

The doctor gave me two options: I could choose either normal pills that need to be taken for two weeks or a shot of penicillin. I had never heard of the second option before and it’s not available in Finland as far as I know. I went for the new experience since the doctor recommended it. Maybe he thought a hippie looking guy like me would never remember to take the pills.

After a while a nurse came with a big syringe and told me that this is going to hurt a little and then gave me the shot. It didn’t hurt as bad as it looked like it might, but afterwards it has been a literal pain in the butt. Even if my butt still hurts a little, my throat is slowly getting better now.

No surf this week

I’m taking it easy with exercise for a while, including surfing. Luckily right now the swell is absolutely huge everywhere, so I’m not missing on much. The waves are for the first time clearly audible even inside Naranja here at the campsite. And it’s about half a kilometer to the shoreline from here. I went for a quick look to the beach today and it didn’t look as impressive as I imagined three meter waves to be. Here they break so far from the beach already that what you really see is just messy whitewater. But it would be cool to see what these waves would be like hitting the cliffs in Cascais for example.

Finally getting my own wetsuit back

I haven’t left Caparica partly because of being sick and also because I haven’t gotten a message from the surf shop yet either. Today I got impatient and asked them and apparently tomorrow the suit will be there. So tomorrow I’m heading to Baleal again.

I’m taking over the tour guide duty as well, since Ana is coming along and she has never visited Peniche or the area. No big plans except a dinner and getting the suit, but I have been there long enough now to know a few cool places to eat and watch the sunset at least. The sunset might be an optimistic thought (more about the weather below), but who knows. It will also be interesting to see how many of the same people are still at the hippie park.

No longer off grid

So far I managed with what the solar panel produced, but yesterday I hit the limit. I paid the campsite extra for electricity. It has rained almost every day this week and the batteries didn’t charge enough from the sporadic sunshine. This is typical weather for the season here and also means I need to plan more carefully from now on. “Wild parking” may be an option for a few days, but I need to be close to a campsite.

Even though this feels like a small defeat, I have to say that I didn’t believe my setup would work this well. The weather has been very favorable until now and the solar panel replenishes the batteries quickly. If there are no trees or other object blocking the sun that is. And this probably has been the most difficult thing to balance with. Finding a spot that has sun, but not too much to cook myself and the insides of the car. Over 30 degrees Celsius isn’t a nice environment to work in.