Lima Adventures: Rachel and her toe arrive

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As the volunteer portion of my adventure sadly comes to a close, my friend Rachel has joined me here in Lima. I spent yesterday showing her around the city and today we fly to Cuzco to begin our trek to Machu Picchu. We´re having a great time so far, but it hasn´t been without a few comical mishaps. Is Rachel bad luck? That´s for you to decide...

First, neither of us are reacting particularly well to the medication we´ve been instructed to take two days before our ascent into Cuzco to prevent getting altitude sickness. Seems as if between the two of us we have been experiencing every side effect possible listed on the side of the bottle. Headaches? Ouch, yes definitely. Dehydration? The four 2.5 litre empty bottles of water in our hotel room should be indication enough...and yes, we cant stop peeing. Loss of appetite? For sure. Rachel has even experienced minor tingling sensation in her hands--this is apparently listed as an "extreme" side effect but we are keeping tabs on it for sure. I dont think you need BOTH hands to climb a mountain anyway, right?

Then, on the way to dinner last night, Rachel tripped over her own flip flop and cut her toe on the sidewalk. Sounds horrible and scary right? Indeed. I have never seen so much blood in my entire life. So as she hobbled back to our hotel, I set off to the pharmacia, where I anxiously mimed a geyser of blood shooting out of big toe to the pharmacist because my limited Spanish vocabulary unfortunately does not include the words "gauze" "antibotic cream" or "triage". When I went to pay for the medical supplies, I realized that I had left my credit card at the place where we had lunch that afternoon. Interestingly enough, this would have been the (count em) SECOND card I have lost on this trip. Is the medication affecting my brain too? So I run over to the restaurant--they recognized me as the stupid American who left her card, but they had my card!!!--and then back to the pharmacy, bought the supplies and some more gallons of water and headed back to the hotel to adminster health care to Rachel. We decided to stay in for the rest of the night, because really, who knows what could happen to us?

Rachel is doing much better today and even let me take a photo of her toe so I could show everyone. Not sure how she is going to get a hiking boot over that ole thing--looks like I may be carrying her up the mountain. All of this and just in LIMA!! What will happen when there are real live mountains, no bathrooms or oxygen, and pumas involved???? Stay tuned.

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