Start of the Inca Trail tour - Ben discovers that food poisoning and altitude don't mix

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So we arrive in Peru for our eagerly awaited Gap adventures tour. The tour starts with a two day stay at Lake Titicaca. We stayed for the night with a family on an island in the middle of the lake. They had two adorable young boys called Oliver and Axel, who tried to sing us nursery rhymes in Spanish while we ate with them. Also tried to play the locals at football, and quickly realised why marathon runners train at altitude:
'I think...I'm...god...just gonna have to take...someone pass the oxygen'.

Despite my lungs nearly exploding I don't think I'll ever see a clearer nights sky than on that island - you could even see the Milky Way.

The following day we made our way back to Puno, the town which borders Lake Titicaca, via the floating Uros islands, made entirely out of reeds. Ben had a typically open mind to this, stating:
'what the hell do they think they're doing - there's plenty of land over there...why don't they just get the hell off these reeds'. I didn't dare mention such blasphemous words as tradition and cultural heritage. Back on dry land following Ben's outburst of reed rage we headed to Cusco to start the Inca Trail.

Luckily for Ben and two other members of our group we ate at a quality establishment that evening, serving three dishes complete with just the right amount of bacteria to seriously destroy a person's internal workings. Though of course at this point we were blissfully unaware of this fact.

So, we start the trail. The first day is actually pretty easy, only about three-four hours of hiking but as the day wears on and camp is set up for us by our army of porters Ben starts to feel a little worse for wear. 'Oh its only altitude sickness' we all cry, as Ben had been a little out of comfort on Lake Titicaca. This is hardly surprising given that it is 4,000m (around 13,000 feet) above sea level, which to put it into perspetive is the height from which I jumped out of the plane when doing my skydive in Oxford.

However, this bout of sickness seemed to be spreading to a few others, and the notion of altitude sickness is swiftly put to bed when one of our party comes to sit at the dinner table and, after seeing to her ill partner in the tent, casually announces that:
'I've just vomited...yeh...out of both ends. I'm gonna have to go down to the stream in the morning to see if I can clean myself up.'
Thanks...just as I'm about to eat soup. For all those unsure yes, she did mean both ends simultaneously - this is known as the infamous 'Double Crown' - and Akshay nearly experienced this first hand by alcohol consumption on numerous occasions in New Zealand and Oz, though he strenuously denies this.

After finishing the meal and someone telling the Double Crowner that he didn't mind where she sat as long as he wasn't downwind of her, we hit the hay. But it just so happens though that I had the pleasure of Ben's company in my tent that night.

About an hour into sleep I get a:
'Steve, I don't feel well'
'Mate, you'll be OK just sleep it off, probably altitude sickness again' (I hoped)
'Alright...'

Another 20 minutes:
'Steeeeeeeve, mate...what the f*ck, I feel terrible'
'Give your stomach a massage, that might help...' (I go back to sleep)

Another 20:
'Awww sh*t, I'm gonna be sick, what the hell is this'
'Mate I don't know, but not in here Ben please...not on the sleeping bags - do it in the entrance bit' (note my tone of sympathy)
At this point it's important to realise that we are both still lying flat in our sleeping bags.
'Ok Ok, sh*t I can't get the tent open' *cue panic*
'STEVE SH*T! I can't get the tent open!'
'BEN PULL THE ZIP PULL THE ZIP!'
'I'M TRYING I'M TRYING'
Now there is a moment of mad scuffling and scrambling as we try and vault out of our sleeping bags to avoid one very messy sleeping area.
'YES BEN I'VE GOT IT - GO GO GO!'
...and then nothing but periodic *bleurgh, cough, bleurgh* coming from the tent entrance, this lovely sound disturbed only by Ben asking:
'Steve, what the *bleurgh*...hell is...*bleurgh* this.' This was repeated for quite some time. Anyone who has seen the film Team America, more specifically the scene where the main character leaves the bar and is sick in the street for about 3 minutes non-stop, will understand the kind of thing that Ben was going through...and I was listening to. As explained above, what 'this' was we subsequently found out, was food poisoning, so the moral of this story - food poisoning and altitude do not, in any way, mix. In fact they bounce off each other to create one superbeing, capable of inducing the infamous Double Crown. This is not a superbeing to be trifled with.

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