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Advice for future travellers to altitude : donīt fly there from sea level, worst donīt fly there from a city thatīs slightly below sea level as Santiago, Chile is. Well just not if you are couple of pansies like B & me. We arrived in the afternoon and caught a mini bus into town. My first impression of La Paz, Bolivia : huge, amazing, daunting, and it is the first big city we have been in our travels that has the least western influence. It is full of women dressed in traditional costume selling food/anything on the side of the streets, lots of traffic, lots of street stalls and lots of beggars. The women in traditional dress are known as chola women. They wear big pleated skirts that make their hips look twice as big, stocking legs that end with pretty ballet shoes, a woolen shawl covering their saggy boobs, their hair parted in the middle with 2 long plaits and a bowler hat to top it all off. They also use colour woven blankets to carry their goods and/or their babies. They are a nighmare to sit next to on a bus with everything they carry.
La Paz is built in a valley where their mid town is located right at the basin. Small houses and building of clay colour cover almost all the hill side. Well we managed to lug our backpacks slowly up the hill to our hostal and napped the afternoon away. I woke up in the evening absolutely famished so we decided to go down to the shops to buy some food. we only got some bananas, bread and some water. As I was paying for the food B called to me urgently that he needed to return. I found him on the steps back up to our hostal. He was kind enough to wait for me to reach the step before throwing up on it. It seemed altitude did not agree with him. I just felt really fatigued. We were going to take our altitude pills but when we read them it said to take one before reaching 2700m, oops..we were at 3800m.
Well the next few days we managed to walk down 3 blocks (remember itīs back up 3 blocks) to a cafe and then to lunch then back up. Finally on the 7th we made it down to the witches markets. Itīs handicraft hell there. All the shops look the same, selling the same sort of stuff. There is one street where the name witches markets comes from, where you can find llama fetuses and other icky things. We ran into a brit we met in argentina, Russell and had dinner with him at a chifa (chinese) restaurant, along with another dutch guy, Luis from the hostal. They told us how hard the inca trail was going to be and how many mosquitoes there were going to be in the jungle. Yeaah!!!
Luis was training to climb one of the nearby mountains which goes above 6000m. We found out later from him that in one of his outings to get acclimatized he got held up at gunpoint and lost everything, camera, film, money and passport. He asked the guy if he could take the film out of the camera and the guy said no. Hmm well what can you do! Lucky to get away without an injury, although he really should not have been where he was. La Paz is fine provided you don't visit the fringes on foot. The people are very poor and it's not worth the risk. Don't think we ever found out if he made it or not, but he definitely wasn't going home without trying it.
The main type of public transport in La Paz is the mini bus. OK, think of a tarago, take all the back seats out and put 4 rows of smaller seats in. Yes 4 rows! Iīm small and i felt cramped. Be warned those with longer legs! We arrived at the īterminalī for the buses to the ruins of the captal of the Tiwanakan empire that preseded the incan empire. We waited, being the only two in the mini van, while our ticket guy yelled īTiwanakuī repeatedly for 15 minutes. People piled in after a while and we left on the 2.5hr journey. When we got to the altiplano, the flat part above la Paz city, we stopped for him yell ītiwanakuī until more people pile in. there were so many ppl in the van that the ticket guy was jammed against the door. A guy with a big plastic canaster filled with petrol got on next to me, 2 chola women got on with their packages and a whole family was jammed somewhere in the back. We were glad to pop out of the van.
The site of the ruins is in a plain surrounded by some low hills that are covered in patch work of crop fields. There are still some statues left but most of it is destroyed. There are still evidence of some amazing stone works though. The spanish thought there was treasure buried around the site so they trashed the place completely but found nothing. The place was interesting none the less.
[B:]The site is split in two, one is Tiwanaku and the other Puma Punku, now Puma Punka has the biggest pieces of stonework I have ever seen. They must way several tons and are about 6m X 2m X 1m and that could be the small piece some were broken. Well I was impressed in a kind of geez where did they get these rocks and how did they get them here!? There aren't any rock outcrops within cooee of the ruins! Anyway, I was impressed.
From :
Linn Linn
It was definitely nice to be leaving La Paz and heading off to do what we had planned for Bolivia. The roads and Buses are not as bad as I had envisioned, ok a little decrepit but ok. The road to Oruro is very spectacular, it crosses the altiplano, which is dotted with small mud huts and small plots of land growing various crops, the people keep llamas and donkeys some of which are hobbled (one of the front legs tied off the ground) to stop them from getting too far in the night. Looks a little cruel, but the animals donīt stop eating all the same.
As with most places we just select a place from the Lonely Planet list and go there, we were however extremely tempted by one place called Alojiamiento Ferrocastil which had the raving review of īlike a prison, but without showersī, hmm tempting.
The place we ended up was ok, except the pub or bar across the road had a band doing something promotional and I got the feeling the guy couldnīt hear his own voice cos he was woeful, I was glad we had a room toward the back, not that it did much but muffle the noise, I mean singing.
Got up early to buy the train ticket to Uyuni because the LP says it leaves in the morning, hmm well not today, it left at 3pm and gets to Uyuni around 9pm. So this left us to wander around Oruro for the day. So we dropped our stuff off into the luggage room and went looking for food.
When we got back to the train station to board the train, we realised we had left our ticket with the luggage handler, oops, and now didnīt have a ticket. So I thought, hmm ok I can explain this to the guy. Ok so I couldnīt but I gave it a damn good try as a crowd of Bolivianos grew behind waiting to buy tickets. I tried every combination of the luggage guy has our tickets while waving the baggage tickets in his face. About the only response I got was yes you collect your luggage in Uyuni. Arrrrgghhhh!!
I left him a little annoyed and ruffled. Then Linn tells me to sit down and within about two seconds she was walking off with the guy to fetch our tickets. I just sat there fuming, stupid stupid man!!
So maybe if I had told him I had lost the tickets I would have gotten a little further. Back to level spanish for me!
As for the train journey, it was great, there was gressland which stretched all the way to the horizon and then was framed by the mountains of the Andes. We passed people herding llamas, in the middle of nowhere, lakes, small salt flats, all the while the sun slowly set turning the landscape various hues of red and orange. To make it even specialler they played Shanghai Noon in english, it was very emotional.
The train had a dining car, the food was ok but they had nailed, glued and welded the windows shut for some strange reason, maybe the food had been worse, but with a couple of people smoking it became unbearable, so we ate really quickly and returned to our seats and what was left of the view before the sun disappeared.
I think it turned out to be a great way to get to Uyuni, other people told us the bus was hell, plus it made for a change from buses. Arriving in Uyuni we got mobbed by people trying to sell us Salt Lake tours but we still thinking that maybe we could meet up with Fran and Tom before the tour so we went and found a hostel and went to bed. The tour agencies could wait till tomorrow.
From :
Blair
After visiting about 20 different tour agencies and having them all say approximately the same thing we eventually narrowed the choice down to two companies which went a slightly different way across the salar (salt lake), and from these two we chose Juliet Tours, thought the cars looked a little newer, possibly a good sign.
We discovered after we had booked our tour that a couple we met in a restaurant had organised to do a private tour with the same company, hmm looks like we might not get the new car. We all got to the office at the organised time and there were two cars, both similar although we discovered not long after the windows in our car had no handles and thus wouldnīt wind down.
We had six in our car plus the driver and the cook a bit of a squeeze, the others were, Tom and Phillipa from the UK and Tracey and Mark also from the UK. The private tour had three people plus the guide and driver, plus windows which wound down! We were a little jealous.
The tour begins by driving out towards the salar and stopping off at places which are meant to be interesting and are midly so, little town near salar, guy mining salt with shovel, īNo fotos!ī hmm must have seen a lot of tourists in his day, hotel made out of salt, interesting but abandoned and also a place where water bubbles to the surface of the lake and is freezing cold.
After that we drive out and out into the salar, the lake itself is huge and formed part of a salt water lagoon of sorts with lake titicaca way back when but now has dried up and collected salt over the years. The next stop is Isla Pescado, and island left stranded in the middle of the salt lake. A really amazing place, there a huge cactus all over the island, which are hundreds of years old, we spent a bit of time exploring the island before lunch. The island was currently invaded by about 6 of those trucks which take people on 15 week tours of South America (arrgh!) this turned out to be not a good thing. During lunch the guide for the other group wanted us to go to San Juan a town where all the other tour agencies go because we had to get to Laguna Colorado for the second night before the other tours to get a bed. We all pointed out that we chose this company on the basis that it went a different way and we would get up early to beat the rush.
The scenery is spectactular, the white of the salt just stretches out to the horizon, we passed a few other islands, and then looking back across the salar they look to be floating above the horizon. Very cool. The road left the salar and we passed vicuņas, donkeys and horses on the plains, it did cross our minds what they were doing at almost 400m but then eating grass was the only answer we could come up with.
Our next stop was the Cueva del Diablo, cave of the devil. Sounds scary doesnīt it! Well it turns out its a pre-inca burial site for the local tribe at the time, the Cholpas. They were apparently 50cm tall. This fact stumped us all, 50cm? are you sure? Thatīs very very small. Ok so maybe they were 50cm but how big were the llamas back then hey? 50cm my butt! We still remain to be convinced of that dubious fact! But the cave was also interestingly surrounded by dead coral. Anyway the cave consists of small circular walls with pits and some of the pits had skeletons of llamas and people in them. There was a cloth there that was meant to be 500 years old. Canīt prove or deny that one.
The continued on to San Pedro de Quemes, a small town on the edge of a large plain with a small hill in the back. Two kids from the hostel are organised to give us a tour of the ruins behind the town. Again Cholpa ruins but the whole 50cm tall thing was wearing a little thin, the ruins were quite interesting with little rooms and holding pens all bit on the side of the hill. The view was stunning especially with the sun beginning to set. The other set of ruins near the town is that of San Pedro de Buena Vista which was the old town before the Chileans fought a war which cut Bolivia off from the coast. Apparently the fighting got this far up the mountains and the town was abandoned. It was in pretty good nic I couldn`t work out why they just didn`t move back in, it was definitely nice than where they were. Just before we went to head back for dinner over the back of the hill we could see I guy herding in his llamas to a holding pen so we went and had a look. Some of them were really cute, wasted a few shots on them.
Back at the hostel we had to stop these kids from singing to us while we ate, so we told them much later after dinner, hmm oops, dinner finished and we had abouit seven more of them with pan pipes and drums and off they went and played and played. Well they weren`t too bad, at least it seemed they had practiced. We gave them a few bolivianos and retired for the night.
The next morning we set off early as planned stopping near an active volcano for pictures, we spotted a kind of long tailed rabbit and spent fifteen minutes chasing it around for more pictures. Lunch was held at this really desolate spot, sand on one side and a system of boulders and rocks on the other, more fuzzy long tailed rabbits and we kept going.
From there we went to our first lagoon, absolutely spectacular (see photo on web of me and linn squatting down) The water itself isn`t very deep but it almost perfectly reflects the mountains, sky and flamingoes. The colours were stunning and to see wild flamingos like this was really special. The place had a magical quality about it. We saw the three different types of flamingoes but since nobody could find a book which described the differences we had to be content with that. We saw a chilean fox as we left and our cook threw it a roll and it posed then trundled off. Mark and Tom somehow didn`t get the photo, so chased off after it with another roll, it was quite funny to watch them chase it, throw the roll, then line up the shot and take it, then of course congratulate themselves on a job well done.
The next two or three lagoons were just as amazing with flamingoes, other birdlife, amazing backdrops. I`m not sure how high it was but it would have to be at least almost 4000m. We started to notice the other companies were catching up and our driver wanted us to get a move on.
Whizzed past the Salvador Dali rocks, made him stop for a photo, but realised that it didn`t look any good through the camera, pretended to take a photo, got back in the car. Whizzed off to the Arbol de Piedra (stone tree). A rock which has been sculptured by the wind to look like a tree, its part of a series of rocks in the area that have all these wierd shapes. The other companies were starting to catch up and we all raced off towards Laguna Colorada to get whatever was left of the accomodation. We got in second and set ourselves up nicely in our room.
The wind was really howling across the lake and we headed off with it at our tail which made for easy going and climbed a small hill for a look out over the lake. The view is incredible the lake it all mulitcoloured with flamingoes dotting the entire surface. Really spectacular, the smell is however almost overpowering, despite the wind the whole place reeks of rotten egg gas. We sat up on the hill for a little while watching the flamingoes trying not to fall over in the wind and then decided to head back.
The walk back took forever, into the wind at altitude with that stupid smell it was awful, when we finally go back, it was commented on that I look green. I have to say I didn`t feel the best. But since I had a little time before dinner, I thought I`d go ans see if I could find Tom and Fran, I figured they would probably we here for the night too. No Luck but I went out after dinner too, still no luck, oh well. Collapsed into bed still not feeling the best but thought I just need to sleep it off. Hmm not to be, I wake up at midnight, thinking, hmm I`m going to be sick, the thing you have to understand is that the toilets dont flush, they`have a big barrel of water and you scoop some out and flush it that way. Well they had run out of water, I wasn`t particularly keen on using the toilet but it really couldn`t be avoided. By 2am I had been sick twice, and the next day I new we were going up over 5000m to the geysers. I was not looking forward to it. I dodn`t sleep well.
In the morning we get up at some ungodly hour like 5am or something and head off towards the geysers for sunrise. I`m feeling a little squeemish but glad to be leaving Laguna Colorada. They geysers were amazing, the whole area stank again, but where the geysers were the mud boiled and bubbled and occasionally got thrown into the air by the rushing steam. The actual height was in dispute somewhere from 4800-5300m depending on who you ask.
To top off what was becoming a good day we drove down (down is good) to some hot springs, all they were were little pools on the edge of a shallow lake. I have to admit thought sitting in that water at 7am was fantastic, pure luxury! I thought of you all of course and laughed! After a little breakfast we were off again, this time to Laguna Verde (green lake) which wasn`t as green as it coudl be since the wind wasn`t blowing, apparently the wind mixes the copper sulfate and arsenic to turn it green. The salt on the edge of the lake was borax, not table salt. A Chilean company nearby export sulfuric acid, hmm nice place.
We dropped the other two couples off at the border as they were heading off to Chile and Linn and I went on. We basically just drove and drove, linn somehow slept through what would have to be described as the roughest road I have ever seen. It was amazing to watch that with every pitch and roll of the car, she slept on, it was only when she slid onto my shoulder that she began to wake. Well she wouldn`t have if my arm wasn`t going numb and I had to move it.
The scenery on the way back was much different to the rest, lots and lots of llamas, more towns and wide open grassland. The driver got lost at one point and seemed to be getting directions from the cook. We drove for over an hour along this massive rock outcrop which seemed to appear from nowhere, as it began to peter out we arrived at another set of really cool rocks which had also been sculptured by wind and water and look really distorted. We spent a short time there and headed off again.
We drove for a little longer not much further and Linn and I were watching this massive black cloud drop off baby tornadoes and we just looked at each other and said well I hope we are not staying here tonight (The town is called Alota). And of course we were, we shared a room with this french guy Phillipe who also had his tour disintegrate around him at the border. He turned out to be really interesting, he is travelling in Argentina with his girlfriend on horseback through the Andes from El Calafate to Salta. Really amazing stuff, he has been planning it for 2 years and they came out and spent 3 months or something choosing horses from a ranch down south and they got about 200km or so and he fell off and broke a rib, so they decided to break the trip and he came up to bolivia to do the salars and visit people. Makes our trip look really easy.
The next day we just zipped back to Uyuni with the driver determined to get up early again, we left way before everyone else and visited the Train Cemetery ourside Uyuni before finishing the tour. The Train Cemetery is this collection of rusting trains from the last century which have been left to rot basically. We climbed all over a few of them took photos of course and left. The fourth day opf the tour ended at 9:30, not really a day but we got this massive room in the hotel.
After organising our stuff we went out for breakfast/brunch and ordered a pizza and then watched the waitress dash across the road buy the stuff then come back trying to hide it in her skirt. Ahhh Bolivia, gotta love it. Pizza was good though. Aftre all the excitement we decided to head for bed.
Our nap though was rudely cut short by someone knocking on the door, Tom and Fran had caught us napping literally and weren`t content to let it be. It was great to see them again, it had only been a little over a week but we missed our two poms. The rest of the day was spent catching up and playing cards. We agreed to go to Potosi the next day, good to be travelling together again.
From :
Blair
The bus ride was pretty uneventful. There was only one toilet/lunch stop from uyuni. The scenery was spectacular. The road wounded around some beautiful colourful mountains. Llamas, sheep, donkeys and goats could be seen grazing in the fields. Some parts reminded me of Salta in the north of argentina. The landscape was dry with mineral rich mountains sticking out of the ground like gigantic rocks.
Potosi has been a mining town since the days of the incas. The spanish discovered the silver and gold and other minerals in the mountains and dug most of it out. Apparently most of the wealth from the spanish empire was from this. They brought slaves from Africa and also used the local indains to mine the mountain to pieces. Now the mountain is like swiss cheese but there are still miners searching for their own small fortune in there. The town itself was quite pretty with the main plaza surrounded by old spanish style buildings.
Tom and Fran went and used the highest internet in the world. It was on the second or third floor of some building. They were puffed out by the time they got up there. We didnīt bother. We ran into Russell (from Puerto Madryn), who had just doen the jungle and was on his way to uyuni to do the salt lakes. We went an had ice cream and cake and swapped stories and information. The info was great since we were heading for the jungle next.
That night we went out for dinner with fran, tom, rusty and elizabeth to this swish looking restaurant which turned out not to be so expensive. 4 of us had steak. It was too much for me, although it was nice so i didnīt finish mine. B got further on his steak but needed tomīs help to finish it off. 5 minutes later... B runs to the toilet. He comes back looking a bit green... oh no! Tom gave him one of his anti-puke-pills (yes they do exist) and B managed to keep his steak down. That night back at the hotel we all discussed the erotic thriller that fran was goign to write. She had been inspired after reading a few pages of a book "last chance saloon" she had been given to by the english and aussie girls (marie and susan) on the navimag boat. The possible titles for this novel were: "last chance monsoon/lagoon/baboon/tycoon/typhoon/cancun/...". Tom was going to the main character, the rugged bolivian/indian naval officer with long flowing dark hair. But after about 10 minutes tom fell asleep and the dodgy character Rusty came into full bloom and by the end of our brain storming, rusty had more of a part in the book than anyone else. Hope fran finishes the book soon.
From :
Linn
We decided to take the tour of the mines of Potosi with the guide from our hostal. We were all given yellow rain coat jackets, a helmet and some gum boots. They were our protective clothing in the mines. We caught a local collectivo (a van bus) to the mines. Just near the entrance was the stall that we were to buy some gifts for the miners for. Apparently it was the done thing to do. We gifts came in white plastic bags with santa motifs on them (being xmas and all). In one bag was some coca leaves, cigarettes and some stuff that they chew with the coca leaves or else it doesnīt activate the drug in the coca leaves. The miners donīt eat anything the whole time they are in the mines, only chew coca leaves and smoke. The other two bags were filled with dynamite, yes the explosive boom boom kind. Our guide was a pudgy man, who discovered that the tourist industry was a richer one than the mining industry. The helper guide was an 11 yr old boy who had family working in the minds and he helps out on school holidays.
The tour was for 3 hrs. The guide led us through the tunnels and explained the economic problems of the mines and of his beloved Bolivia. We met a 60 year old miner who we gave a bag of dynamite to. We all had a go with his mining tools, which consists of a really heavy hammer and a long pointy chisel. Electric hammers are too expensive so they only work with the basics. They dig a hole with the hammer and chisel for the dynamite to fit into and then they make the explosion and then they go through the rubble hoping to find something. I was a bit apprenhensive about getting claustrophobic but the tour was actually quite fun. It really makes you put all the crappy jobs iīve ever had into perspective.
That afternoon we head off to the lower city of Sucre.
From :
Linn
Sucre is a beautiful city, I think we appreciated the significant increase in oxygen, getting into the "twos" was a bit of a buzz. Travelling again with Tom and Fran we found a rather large hostel in which to stay with big open courtyards and good size rooms. The streets are quite busy outside as there seems to be a market on with street stalls all over the place. We are quite close to the main square which has a fantastic park surrounded by the old spanish colonial buildings. Sitting in the second story patio of the cafes and restaurants allows us to see the rollings hills of the countryside around the city. All the houses here have the terracotta roof tiles and if not for the bolivians, lower health standards, multitudes of dogs and the distinctively different style of house and of course no harbour, harbour bridge or opera house one might mistake it for sydney. Ok lets just leave it at terracotta rooftiles. Sucre does have a lovely relaxed atmosphere with several gringo cafes which liven up the fried chicken, rice, potato and maybe just maybe a slice of tomato that we had been eating quite a lot of in Bolivia.
We couldn't help but notice the presence of the dinotruck around town and decided it would be a worthy side trip to see the worlds largest set of dinosaur footprints (Ethan eat your heart out! :)) Tom got sick, and definitely wasn't looking well so leaving him in bed the rest of us climbed onto the back of the truck, with dinosaurs painted on the side, very inconspicuous as you can imagine and headed off for the dinotracks. We shared the tour with some swedish girls?? and upon arriving Linn and I quickly found the sandpit with the toy dinosaurs and got Ken out for a photo op. After a little bit of rearranging we had the perfect shot only to discover that the entire tour was waiting for us to finish! oops! Well the tour was in english, given by a university student and he went through and explained that the footprints were discovered when the local cement making factory uncovered them mining for cement. The factory still operates on site. The footprints are on a huge wall of crumbling rock and contain the footprints of quite a few different types of dinos, from the big footprints of a diplodocus type animal to a raptor type called Johnny Walker by the locals because his footprints stretch over 200m in a continuous sequence. It is very impressive and the local paleontologists are working at trying to find a solution regarding how to protect them from crumbling away. In fact the entire set of footprints has not yet been fully excavated as the wall seems to extend beyond the extent of the current exposed area.
We enjoyed our dinotruck, told Tom all about it and how all those useless facts he would have lapped up. Tom bounced back quite well from his illness and was back eating like a horse before you knew it. I seemed to pick it up as well and just before we left Fran got it and later on in Bolivia Linn got it.
But for those of you who remember Sucre was the place where my virgin scalp got exposed to the full force of the sun. This all started because I had noticed I was getting a bit burnt and thought I should buy a hat and the thought of having hat hair for the rest of the trip didn't seem that attractive. So, well why not take it all off I thought. There was a barber near the hostel and the walls were covered in girlie posters, most of the magazines were not suitable for minors, but I persisted. I sat in the chair and asked for a number two, "dos, dos, por favor". The man looks at me and rubs the back of his hand. I'm saying "dos, dos". He looks at me, looks at Linn, she shrugs and smiles. Then he proceeds to give me a zero, well once you start there is no going back. A little girl was in the barber with her mum and dad and she got quite scared by the time I had finished. My scalp was white, whiter than white, a whiter white than those whitening washing powders and it hurt to stand in the sun. My delicate never seen the sun in 20 odd years couldn't take even a brief sojourn into sunlight. But I had my hat, albeit it didn't quite fit and left a nasty red line across my forehead for the first two weeks but it was mine!
We spent a few days in Sucre, we saw the natural history museum, even the weaving museum, where they train street kids to weave and give them a livelihood. We would have loved to have bought some but they were rather expensive, not unreasonably as the quality was excellent. Some of the weavings were exquisite, would love to go back with some money and get some of it.
We made friends with another english couple (Andy and ?) in the hostel who had begun their travels in Venezuela and were travelling around, they seemed a lot more organised than us, we just went with the flow. It soon became time for us to leave, Fran got sick and wasn't looking well, I think a killer caipirinya got her. They were going to Santa Cruz for christmas while we were wanting to head off to the jungle and Macchu Picchu before the wet season closed in and made it miserable. It was sad saying goodbye to them for the second time but we needed to get a move on and start heading in the right direction.
From :
Blair
It would definitely not be an understatement to say the bus trip back to La Paz was unpleasant. Linn seemed to pick up the bug from Fran and was feeling ill. The bus was really crowded and stuffy, then to make things worse it drove back to Potosi before heading off to La Paz. The road was really bumpy and with both of us needing to answer the call of nature we felt them all. Finally I snapped and marched down to the front of the bus, squeezed the door open leading to front cabin (pushing somebody out of the way) and managed to ask for the bus to pull over so we could go. I tell you what there were a lot of happy people, the bus practically emptied. The stars shone above, a thunder storm crackled in the distance with the odd lightning strike and if not for the approaching truck I would have taken longer.
With the crisis averted, we continued. Stopping at a small town where I perhaps mistakenly had an egg roll at 2 in the morning we then continued all the way to La Paz. We were quite tired by the time we trundled back to our hostel in La Paz, the owner and staff practically greeting us like family on our return. Linn was not well so it was up to me to organise our trip to the jungle. Having talked to Russell in Potosi, I did a little bit of scouting around for prices but ended up going with the same company he went with as I got a good price. I was hoping to do the downhill bike ride on the South Americas most dangerous road but since it was the wet season and low season, there weren't any guarantees about getting a group together. I organised the flights, forget the 24 bus ride when you can get there in 1 hour by plane!! Went and saw Lan Chile people to change some flights, got food and staggered in to the hostel absolutely exhausted.
The exertions of the day caught up with me and I got really sick, couldn't eat or drink really as my body alternated between wanting to throw up or go to the bathroom, sometimes not alternating. I got up and down all night feeling really crook and fragile, with Linn following after me with bottled water and a towel. What a trooper. I definitely lost weight that night and was feeling sufficiently delicate to ask for a doctor in the morning. Well I felt awful and just making it to the front room down the stairs was quite a challenge.
When the doctor came he could speak english and had a nurse with him who was obviously new as at times she was more concerned with her hair and uniform rather than the patients. I got a shot in my behind to stop me throwing up and some pills to take over when the shot wore off. Linn was told to keep an eye on her problems as it hadn't quite cleared up. I started feeling better but didn't have much strength so we rested. I was very glad to have finally started to keep food down. The bike ride was cancelled due to lack of interest and illness on my part, so a bit of a relief, although the town at the end was meant to quite beautiful.
So, Lesson 321: Don't over exert yourself at altitude!
From :
Blair
From :