Whilst we were waiting for our lunch at one of the restaurants at Enseada de Garapua, to cool off from the oppressing heat, I went for a 20 minute swim in the ocean. With lunch beckoning, it was time to head back to the rest of our group sitting on the beach. Walking out of the water, at around 300 mm deep, I felt this massively burning sting on the bridge of my right foot. Then as I step onto my left foot, I stepped onto something sharp and once again felt a burning pain - but much more intense than my right foot. I was clear that I was bitten or stung by something vicious on my right foot and stepped onto something sharp with my left foot. Limping to the showers, I could struggle to cope with the escalation burning pain in both my feet. Indeed, there was a needle like penetration on the bridge of my right foot slightly and slowly oozing a couple drops of blood. My left foot had a deep laceration of about 10 mm on the ball of my left foot near my small toe.
The pain was excruciating and felt like somebody was burning my feet with a blow torch. The waiter came over and explained that a local fish was the culprit of all this - we gathered from him that it was a toadfish. I started sweating from this massive overdose of pain, completely lost my appetite and my left leg started trembling. One of the locals gave us a lift to the public medical clinic in the area where they checked the wounds, cleaned it with some anti septic liquid, gave my an anti inflammatory injection and bandaged my left foot. The intense pain continued for another 3 hours before subsiding. This was by far the most intense pain I thus far felt in my life. It later emerged that the needle like spike of the toadfish entered the bottom of my left foot and emerged between my toes on the upper side of my foot. Damn toadfish! If I ever catch you, like somebody we know once said, "I will kill you dead!