Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Jungle Days 2 and 3

Ohhh, poor me! My insides were unhappy, resulting in multiple trips to the bathroom. Much to my chagrin, the water is shut off each night at 10 pm. Let's just say that being unable to flush was not a good thing at all. I was up all night, sick and sitting on the toilet. The snoring from next door was incredible, never have I heard such loud snores from what sounded like 10 people. If this family had a dog, the dog would have snored as well. I am sure the noise from our side, while not snoring, was not much better. Sorry!

Day finally dawned and I felt worse, the intestinal issue moving up to my stomach. I hate feeling like I am going to throw up, and the mixture of that feeling plus the need to sit on the toilet made for a really bad time. Karen tried to get me something to drink, but I really couldn't drink or eat anything. I felt like crap. Finally, I puked in the trash can and slept a little. I was miserable, but at least it was kind of nice in the room, not hot, small breeze and I could see the jungle outside of the room. Karen brought some ginger ale and crackers which I nibbled on, and then some chicken soup, which I could not eat. It was bright yellow. The color alone made me gag.

Karen got to go on a little hike, and pond boat ride, and took some good photos for me to see. I could not stand up but did rotate between the bed and the hammock. Finally, in the late afternoon, I took a shower and felt a teeny bit better. Still could not eat anything but crackers, but did try to drink ginger ale. The snoring family left, so night 2 was better and I got some more needed sleep.

By Day 2, I could actually get up and showered without any problem. I ate breakfast and walked around the big lodge a bit. Even after 2 days at sea level, I was dizzy and winded when I climbed to the second floor. I knew this was bad, and told Carlos I needed to see a doctor when we got back to Cusco later that day. It was really unfortunate that I got super sick in the jungle and we had such a short time there, as there was a lot that we could have done there. They had biking, hiking, kayaking, canopy climbing, etc. that Karen and I would have loved to have done. But, all I saw was the view out of the room. Oh well.

We left early to go back to fly back to Cusco. The boat ride back was much faster, given we were going with the current and the bus ride back was much the same as the one out to the boat launch. Bright orange dirt road, many unfinished bridges, people on motorcyles, people doing laundry in the water. We went to an ice cream place in town, and then flew out and back to Cusco. Not a terribly exciting town.

The minute we landed in Cusco, I got dizzier. We were to leave the next day to go to Lake Titicaca, several thousand feet higher than Cusco.