Pre Hike

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The story of the hike really starts a few days prior to the actual hike. There was nothing special about these days, except I was sick. It wasn’t a consistent sickness, it came and went, got worst, got better. I would feel ok for long periods of time. I never thought it was that bad. I thought I was getting better.

However, the day before the hike, I got very sick, very quick. I had a fever, nausea, stomach aches, diarrhea, the works, I couldn’t eat or drink. The thought of food put me on the verge of vomiting. I dragged myself to James and Julie’s where James managed to find me some drugs to take.

In La Paz this consists of self diagnosis via the internet then buying the pills that the website recommends from a pharmacy. You can get anything you want without a prescription, and you pay for each pill individually, it’s quite bizarre. Thankfully for me friends of theirs had already suffered a similar fate, as does everyone who stays here for any length of time, so finding what pills to take was a simple phone call away.

That night was hell. I got no sleep, felt awful, really awful. I had given up all hope of making the start of the hike at 7.30am. My only hope was that the pain and discomfort would subside longer enough for me to fall asleep. Around 6am I started to feel ok and slept till 7. I woke up and debated whether to go or not. At the very last minute I decided to go as I wouldn’t get another chance of doing the hike with the guys from YFC as they were going home straight after.

I grabbed my gear and planned to walk to the meeting place as it wasn’t far from James and Julie’s. In the end this was too hard and I got a ride in a truffi for 500m. I really had to. I made it just in time. The hike was still a 2 hour bus trip away and the whole time I was thinking weather or not I made the right decision or not.

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