Tummy troubles and other tales

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I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. The dreaded travellers tummy.
Looking back I had been quite lucky really. Normally I pick up some sort of bug within about two weeks of being in a new country. Vietnam was around two weeks in. I was playing pool one night with my travelling buddy Kuba, a really cool Polish fella, and who is soon to be a dad for the first time next week.
So feelling a bit squiffy, I retired early from pool back to the hostel. Some minor vomiting in the night and a touch of the squits. Nothing much to write home about and all run of the mill for a traveller in foreign climbs. I had a necessary pills in my first aid kit and by mid- morning the next day I was fine.

Well, this time I REALLY had it! Not a pretty sight at all!
All I am grateful for is that there was no-one else in the dorm that night. There are three beds in my dorm. I am currently alone.
There had been a nasty bug going round the hostel last week. Christobel was violently ill as was his sister Christine a few days later. I knew I was #ed there and then as the day before Chrisobels episode I had drunk some water from his bottle. With Christobel holed up in bed his family described with accurate detail his attack and explained that his girlfriend Isobel had had it a few days before they arrived. I reflected on drinking a few sips from his water bottle the day before. Schoolboy error really but with no symptoms over the weekend thought I had got away with it. Oh yeah, I could cross all my fingers and toes but deep down I knew I was completely screwed.

I had booked to travel up to 2800 meters to the thermals, hot springs at the top of the valley. A day trip with apparently the most amazing views.
The bug clearly had other ideas and was waiting to strike at the most inconvenient of times.
The night before it presented itself in the most violent way I have ever suffered.
Normally if whilst asleep you wake up feeling that you are about to throw up, there is a short time lapse between realising the supper you ate the night before is about to visit your mouth, and the actual event itself, allowing you time to reach the toilet bowl.
Young babies do not have this ability and throw up at any opportunity but over the years your body develops some sort of alarm system, warning you that your nights sleep is about to be ruined.
Presumably that is where the expression 'I slept like a baby' comes from. Wake up three times in the night with vomit and shite everywhere.
I awoke around 4am. My internal alarm system, finely tuned over 49 years, ringing loudly about in my head. I was about the explode from both ends, but this time it was too late to reach the bathroom and there was nothing I could do about it. My entire internal system suddenly shut down on me. Muscles that normally hold things in abruptly failed and BANG!. Both ends at once.
It was if I had suddenly turned into a bottle of champagne in the hands of the winner of a formula 1 race. Shaken hard and then the cork is popped off, with the lovely golden liquid inside spewing forth over the crowd and his fellow racers. This time however it was not 'lovely bubbly'.
I was suddenly in the movie 'The Exorcist'. The devil himself was visiting me. I was Linda Blair, projectile vomiting bile over the priest who had come to purge my soul and filling the room with a smell that can only come from the arse of Satan himself.
It was truly the most horrendous experience I have ever had.
I ran out of the dorm and across the path to the bathroom with vomit exploding out of my mouth and liquid shit blasting from my arse. There was nothing I could do to prevent it, save from sticking a finger up my arse but then that would only have been the same as putting your thumb over a hose when watering the flowers. Same flow, just more spray. Luckily there was a sink next to the toilet and spent what seemed like forever filling both up at the same time.

Returned to my room to survey the scene. Spent the next 10 minutes wiping up the floor and stripping my bed.
A couple of visits to the bathroom later, at around 9.30am, the thermal guide knocked on door. I think the colour green in my face and pointing to my mouth and arse gave him the clue I was not well.
The kind cleaner came to me at about 1pm with some of her medicine. She was so kind, and said nothing when I handed her the sheets covered in puke and shite and pointed to the floor where my attempts to clean up the mess had clearly been in vain.
Spent the rest of the day resting in the shade and close to the bathroom.
Hopefully that is my travel bug episode over. The sad thing is I am not sure if there will be another trip to the thermals thus week.
Ah well.
Disco out.

Today is Good Friday. Someone has climbed the mountains surrounding the hostel and left three crosses on the top to remind us of the day. Andy called last night. My credit cards have reached his address in Santiago. Good times. Unfortunately Chile has all but shut down for the Easter holidays, bad times. Will have to wait til next week to send them to my next hostel. My gut tells me that something is going to go horribly wrong somewhere. My head is screaming at me to return to Santiago again to collect them.
I have to have a little faith. Two German women, who look remarkabley like Little and Large, assure me Chile Express is reliable, having used it themselves. Me? Remember where I am - South America. One woman is short and dumpy with huge comedy 'hair bear bunch' hair, the other has lilly white legs like spindles and is as tall as me. Taller in fact. In fact, as tall stakes go, she is one of the tallest and thinnest women I have every seen. I have never seen legs so thin, and come to think of it, white. They can never have seen the sun. Her teeth are also a mess but she must have looked good in her day. Unfortunately that day was April 6th 1955.
But if Germans, and all their efficiency, bushy hair, spindly legs and 'vorsprung durch technic' recommend Chile Express then a little faith I will show.
I am going to head up to the coastal area of Balia Inglesa, about 7 hours north on the bus. It has been recommended as a place to go and from the pictures looks a great spot. Anita, is coming along too. She has a dilemma where she has now met the lovely Ciro but is still getting txt from her ex-boyfriend. She is great fun and it will be good to have her company next week. Also her drivers licence has not been stolen so we can rent a car and have some fun on the coast for a few days exploring off the beaten track and avoid those on the lonely builshit trail.
She then has to decide whether to return to Valpariso to see Ciro or push on to San Pedro de Aticama. For me the answer is simple.
When Anita asked me her opinion for what it was worth I told her that she should call her ex and just give it to him straight. " shoot straight from the hip, give him the bad news. Just don't pussyfoot around the issue".
Anita suddenly burst into fits of uncontrolable laughter. In her Swiss/German accent saying "pussyfoot?pussyfoot?" Though her tears of laughter instead of seeing a cat pawing around quietly deciding whether or not to take a course of action (pussyfoot- trying to avoid an issue) she imagined the other type of pussy, you know, the lady garden, but with feet coming out of it as if someone had fallen in!
Bizarre sense of humour the Swiss, and no mistake.
Saw my very first humming bird today. Humming about it was, kissing every flower in the garden, in particular the red ones.
There is a Latin American story about the humming bird which is similar to our own Romeo and Juliet and if I may indulge you for two minutes:
Alida is a young girl whose father is the head of the tribe. One day she meets Tacoo by the river in the mountains. He is from an enemy tribe across the valley.
They know that meeting is wrong but they fall hopelessly in love. They meet secretly by the river but inevitably are discovered.
Alida's father decides she should marry another man in the village. Distraught she turns to the gods for help as she cannot marry someone she does not love and cannot bear the fact she will never see her beloved Tacoo again. They turn her into a beautiful red flower.
Tacoo sits by the river for years, waiting for his one true love. Finally the moon tells him what has happened. He turns to the gods for help in finding his only true love and they change him to a hummingbird. And since that day he has flitted from flower to flower, hovering delicately and kissing each one. But his favourite flower to kiss are the red ones. He still has never found Alida but will never give up.
See, told you it was a lovely tale.
Well it was lovely until Anita read my blog. "David, what is hoovering?" she asked in her Swiss/German accent. She often does this. Asks me random questions about the English language as she perfects it.
I explained to her what hoovering meant. Basically means using a vacuum cleaner to clean the house. Invented by a clever chap called Hoover. It is an English term for using a vacuum cleaner about the house. "For example, I am hoovering the house" I said "understand?" She looks at me a little confused.
"Why is the humming bird in your tale cleaning the house and also delicately kissing each flower?"
This time it was my turn to howl with laughter.
"Hovering! It's hovering by a flower, not #ing hoovering!". Her infectious giggle made me cry with laughter.

Louise, my new room mate joins me at the pool. She is 29 years old and from Devon. She was made redundant and is spending the layoff money travelling around the world.
Apparantly last night I was shouting 'pasaque' in my sleep. Pasaque is the Spanish word for travel ticket. Quite why I was doing this I have now idea, but it did make Louise smile. Too much Pisco sour last night maybe at a fabulous little bar close to the hostel.
Tonight it is a full moon. Think I will spend it quietly around the pool with a bottle of wine looking at the night sky. There is a thermal trip on for tomorrow and hopefully this time I will be on it.
Disco out.

Footnote: I know Kuba reads this blog so congratulations buddy. May your new daughter bring you and your partner nothing but untold joy

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Photos

Hummimg bird
Its Hovering, not Hoovering

the pool
round which I sat trying to get better.

a rude lemon
sending this to Ester Ranzen