Queensland Roadtrip Day 3: Byfield State Forest – Cape Hillsborough National Park (430km)
It was an emergency that stopped me exploring our camp spot by light. Everything got thrown into the car; pots and unwashed coffee cups shoved into ill suited gaps, L-man’s backseat den more cramped than cosy.
Filed under activity & sport, australia, camping, cities, national parks, oceania, roadtrip
The Guardian calls it ‘the world’s first cocaine bar’ and others have dubbed it ‘one of the greatest travel experiences in South America‘. Route 36, a late night lounge bar in La Paz aimed solely at a tourist clientele, has established itself firmly as a must-stop-off on the gringo trail by offering a relaxed club environment where you can buy cocaine and chop up lines in relative comfort.
Labelled ‘cocaine tourism’, other bars in La Paz are now starting to copy Route 36’s lead and tap into travellers’ spending power and intrigue. But how are these places actually able to exist?
The legality of such a place is of course at the forefront of conversations surrounding Route 36’s existence, an existence that sees the bar switching location every month or two in order to beat the authorities and avoid pissing off too many neighbours as a regular trickle of tourists make their way in and out of the venue.
Who knows how long it will be before the Bolivian government start a proper clampdown on corruption associated with the cocaine trade, and in turn this trend for coke bars?
Bolivia is currently ‘the world’s third biggest cocaine producer‘ and it’s going to be a struggle convincing the world that it’s actively battling the drug trade whilst they’re still pushing for global acceptance of the traditional use of coca leaves. There are clearly some cultural considerations that the wider world needs to be aware of and the country is taking steps to raise awareness whilst also making some significant changes. A recent increase in cocaine production, for example, has resulted in Bolivia putting to bed a previous public disagreement with the US Drug Enforcement Administration and accepting offers of help from the US and Brazil to fight this ‘war’.
But in terms of Route 36, cocaine with its low cost and easy availability forms the crux of its attraction, and the place itself is undoubtedly designed to appeal to the sensation seeking tourist and provide them with a story for when they return home. You went where? A cocaine bar? Really? No way! Imagine if we had…! The police would… blah blah blah. You get the drift.
So the novelty factor, maybe, plays a role in attracting in the punters. Nowhere else have I heard of a public bar where you can happily sit down, order up a few lines and snort them openly. It’s essentially the normalisation of drug taking; a place where you can indulge and party away from any critical judgement of non-drug taking friends and family. ‘It’s a pretty regular bar’ said one of my friends who found himself there on a few early mornings when he wasn’t yet ready for bed. The only difference between a ‘regular’ club and Route 36? Ask about the coke on offer, spend out 150Bs. (£13.69 / US$21.55) and you’ll get yourself a gram in the latter. No questions asked. No problems.
Why avoid the place? Other than the obvious health and legality issues, for what you pay, there is a far purer product out there at a cheaper or similar price. Friends and cocaine connoisseurs tell me that the quality of Route 36’s offerings is pretty pitiful, suspected to be cut with amphetamines that keep you uncomfortably awake way beyond the end of the party in a way that purer powder won’t.
Overall though, I can’t comment with any real conviction. I’m no expert and for various reasons I didn’t get around to visiting the place. Missed opportunity? Maybe.
Party people in La Paz (photo: Carl Maybry©)
It was gone 03:30am, I was totally sober and one of a few people in the Azul nightclub in La Paz not revved up on alcohol or cocaine. Tiredness was giving me that dazed, drunken effect but I felt pretty damn good that I was still holding up.
I became an artist, decorating friends’ faces with UV paint. In turn, my face was painted in yellows and pinks, covering some of the black stamps from another creative burst earlier in the evening. I chatted and laughed, I swigged water and I danced shamelessly to bad music on the teeny dance floor.
And then I saw it: pools of bright red blood covering the ground by my feet, fainter towards the bar where people had unknowingly stumbled through, streaking and smearing the place in the colour of danger. Splodges of UV paint shone out in between.
And the crowd continued to dance.
I’d somehow missed the disturbance on the dance floor. A stabbing, some local guy told me, two Bolivians. I couldn’t see how someone could have survived that much blood loss. But was it really blood? It was so bright.
Starting to notice the blood
Bar staff eventually started to mop up and the revellers were encouraged to leave. And there again, trails of blood, coagulating on the stairs and on the pavement.
We waited for a taxi. A few of us were hushed in disbelief. People continued to spill out of the club. Some stood in the pools of blood, oblivious. I stopped a few. If they didn’t care about the stabbing, maybe they’d care about their shoes? And would the blood not need to remain as it was for police evidence?
A man came out of the Azul nightclub and started to pour a clear liquid over the blood on the pavement. He scrubbed away with a stiff brush, pushing a watery, bloody mix onto the road. Before long, little remained. No police showed up.
A few days later I discovered that the man had survived. This was the same time that some of the partiers who had been there that night finally realised that someone had actually been stabbed.
Three times, I told them, did you not see all the blood? Too off their heads. But for me, sober, I saw it and I felt it raw and it stuck like something from a movie still. And I wished it were just all a movie or a figment of my imagination but no, this was real life touching on the only certainty of death.
The papers didn’t report it, from what I managed to gather, and the police seemed to ignore it. I discovered that a tourist had also been involved in a minor way. But that about the main guy? Despite the double stabbing, he got lucky and was recuperating in hospital. Life wasn’t done with him just yet.
People told me that La Paz, like many a city, has a dangerous, crazy side, but to see it up close on my first night? What a reality check.
Whilst doing the Uyuni tour, Dan, 18 from Scotland puked every day of the four day trip. His head pounded, he struggled to see straight and he missed some pretty special moments on the journey from San Pedro de Atacama in Chile over to Uyuni in Bolivia whilst he lay in the dark wishing that his breathing was less panicky so that he could sleep.
‘It is pretty much the worst I’ve ever felt’, he said, ‘back home I’m never unwell really, but this was killer’.
Of course it wasn’t a killer, although altitude and its effects shouldn’t be taken too lightly. People can and do die from acute mountain sickness but for most of us who get a good shooing by high altitudes, we just feel nauseous and may actually vomit, the pressure in our heads builds to unbearable levels, our breathing gets shallow and we can struggle to focus.
On Day 2 of my Uyuni tour I started to feel rough. The visit to the Train Graveyard and the salar on Day 1 had been fine, but today we were visiting some geysers and gurgling mud pools. And it wasn’t the smell that sent me into a spin, it was the 5,200m altitude that did it.
We drove over to a little place for food and I just about managed to force some down my gullet. The rest of my group lounged around in hot pools, laughing, flirting, toasting the landscape with a bit of beer or wine or whatever they had. I, quite frankly, couldn’t muster up the energy to care what they were drinking or doing. I wished that I was well enough to be with them but instead I was curled up in the back of our jeep. Any movement was a bad idea. My head pounded and my lunch threatened to throw up.
The rest of my crew hang out in the hot pool whilst I curl up across the backseat of the jeep
By the evening I was even less sociable and in quite a mess. Sick and tears and what felt like a fever were confining me to my bed or the bathroom. Every last bit of goodness exited my body, leaving me a miserable, retching wreck. A friend held my hair whilst I chucked. Oh, the small blessings in life.
You’re meant to care for me, not kill me! (in all seriousness, thanks so much Nathalie and Carl)
‘You must tell me if you have chest pain’, said my guide Gonzalo after he’d brought a bucket and a mug of hot, sugary chacuma and coca leaf tea to my bedside. He wasn’t worried about my perpetual puking, and he didn’t seem particularly sympathetic to the cold concrete toilet floor that had become a close up familiarity as I paid my dues to the altitude demons. But chest pains? Different story.
‘Drink this. All of it’, he instructed. I sipped at it. It was sickly sweet. My stomach cramped. I wondered what if I’ve just been trying to ignore the signs and I’m actually one of the few people that gets seriously ill and dies from high altitude? I wonder if my travel insurance covers me to this altitude? I hope my family and friends know how much I love them.
Okay, I’m overdramatising somewhat, but I was zoning out into a world of temperature and delirium. Gonzalo seemed pretty unfazed by what felt like my bodies last attempt to demonstrate to me how crap it could be. He’d seen this so many times before, I guess. But why me? Why Dan?
I’d spent three weeks in Sucre at 2,750m, and then one night in Uyuni, which sits at 3,669m. Surely it was time enough to acclimatise? I even passed through Potosi – the highest city in the world at 4,070m – and felt nothing other than a slight daze. But because I was finishing yet another dose of antibiotics and codeine and whatever else, there is a small chance the medication enhanced my natural sensitivity to the altitude. Or maybe, altitude and me just aren’t a good partnership.
And Dan? I’ve heard from guides and other travellers that the route from San Pedro to Uyuni is tougher on the body, accelerating in altitude much quicker meaning there is little chance to adjust and higher chance of suffering the negative effects. In Dan’s group of ten people, three people felt terrible and went down the puking route. On my tour, I was the only one out of twelve of us that really had a bad time. Another girl struggled on and off with a bad head but seemed able to shake it off in between.
Statistics show that its highly unlikely you’ll actually die from altitude sickness but many backpackers I’ve talked to in Bolivia at least feel the effect of the lack of oxygen. Climbing stairs in Bolivia’s capital of La Paz, for example, leaves even the young fitties huffing and wheezing like ex-smoker OAPs.
But there is something undeniably cruel about being in such a beautiful place in the world and not being able to feel alive enough to run around and kiss the earth and shout at the sky. Or get in the hot springs with new friends.
That second night where we stayed at 4,200m, Gonzalo let me get on with emptying my stomach whilst being nursed by two wonderful beings. I finally fell into a drug induced sleep and awoke the following day to a calmer response; less intense symptoms. I could continue. No dramas.
Luxury accommodation in the guise of a simple stone building
‘The stuff I gave you works’, said Gonzalo, ‘every time’. Local knowledge and local herbs rule. Who knows what I really took. I’ve stopped asking when travelling. Take it and shut up and hope you get better. When you’re feverish and shaking and hurt to hell, you just want out. Quickly.
‘So you’re pretty used to dealing with this stuff then?’ I asked Gonzalo as I hungrily ate a pancake breakfast. ‘Yep. I knew you’d be okay. People are often ill.’ ‘Every trip?’ I asked him. ‘Pretty much’, he said.
So enjoy Uyuni, enjoy Bolivia but beware the altitude demons are waiting for someone. And maybe, for the first time in your life, you probably don’t want it could be you* to ring true.
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*It could be you is the UK National Lottery’s tagline
Filed under activity & sport, bolivia, health, south america, tours
Some day time revellers keep going at the rave (photo: Carl Maybry©)
IT’S FRIDAY AND I SHOULD be in Uyuni with new friends partying at a windpowered goa-trance festival on the Salt Flats outside of Uyuni in Bolivia, but I’m ill. Another bout of food poisoning has crippled me.
I let my friends know that I can’t come. A day on the bus followed by a weekend of all-nighter hedonism when I’m spinning out and have only just stopped puking? Not a great idea. But I’m gutted.
My day comprises of sleeping and Skype chats. It’s taking me ages to do anything. My eyes are heavy so after my lunchtime snack of cough medicine and probiotics, I end up snoozing some more.
One of my friends drops me a message to say that a local told him ‘the raves out on the Salar de Uyuni aren’t all that great anyway’. Momentarily I feel better but then I look at pictures of the salt flats, imagine 180° of starry sky and I’m back to frustrated envy.
I venture out of the hostel for the first time in a couple of days. Destination: pharmacy. I need to stock up on potent cough syrup. Two more bottles, the doctor reckons, that’s at least another week of codeine stupor. I walk slowly with consideration; I am spinning out and not totally sure that I won’t faint.
The doctor has banned me from eating out, despite it often being cheaper, so I make myself a package soup and tart it up with some vegetables. Hopefully this time the food will stay down. It doesn’t.
I don’t have the energy to be my social self and initiate conversation with all the new people in the hostel, but I chat a little with the owner’s son. Spanish practise. He’s not feeling well either, although it’s definitely something different. His Bolivian belly is resistant to the food and water bugs. Tourists, he says, always get sick at some point.
I watch a movie but I can’t focus. I keep imagining a mass of bodies bouncing to a beat. I’ve never been to a trance party. Travelling for me is about trying new things and stepping out of my comfort zone. This would have been perfect. I’ve never liked trance music. I don’t think.
Another whack of medication. Doped out.
I wake up on Saturday feeling pretty good considering that if you shook me, I’d rattle. I take a shower. I’m so spaced out from all the medication that I get stuck into a stare. I wonder if the way I’m feeling is anything similar to how it feels to be on ketamine. Why ketamine, I’m not sure. It must have cropped up in conversation recently. I’m tingly and dizzy and a bit numb. I’m trying to flip this on its head, trying to enjoy the feeling. I’m listening to Salmonella Dub and I wonder what genre Salmonella Dub is. I’ve never been good at classifying music. Whatever, it’s my own zone out party. I’m sure I’m in the shower for far too long. Zombiefied.
The rain arrives. ‘I’ve never seen rain in Bolivia’, says a guy I meet in the kitchen over a cup of tea. Talking about the weather. I could do this in England. I do do this in England. Actually, I do this everywhere. My one bit of Englishness comes with me.
And the day continues pretty uneventfully. I manage to get out to buy a bus ticket to Uyuni for the following day. The rain makes me a bit soggy, which isn’t clever when I’m still sick. Bare feet weren’t the smartest move. I buy some shoes. Retail therapy, not my thing at all, but it works. If I’d gone to the rave I wouldn’t have been able to buy these lovely shoes. I’m momentarily consoled.
For the first time in a while I can focus on a screen so I watch a movie but fall asleep half way through. It’s isn’t a bad film at all, just sometimes something happens when I’m in bed watching a film, particularly when I’m drugged up to my eyeballs. I try to fight it but my body wins out.
Early Sunday morning I pay my bill and get a goodbye cuddle from my hostel hostess. She’s been worrying about me. Thinks I should stay longer. I think I need to get out of Sucre before I become yet another one of the travellers stuck here longer term. I don’t think the place is healthy for me.
Maybe Uyuni will be better? Somehow I doubt it. Sitting at an altitude of 3,669m, I know my pain isn’t over. But I’m on the bus and heading to my friends who will surely be buzzing with incredible stories of all-nighters and special connections and amazing skies and scenery.
And, probably because I’ve been so damn unwell, actually I’m not really jealous. Yet.
Filed under bolivia, culture, festivals, south america
English: Broken Love Heart bandage (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It’s not a secret that I have had a bit of a thing for South America. But this story isn’t about that, either. Or maybe it is a little, because this love story is about the attempted destruction of my love affair with South America.
I have always intended to keep romantic relationships out of my blog, but on this occasion I’ll break my own rules. And in any case, it’s not a particularly romantic story, just a slightly frustrating, sickening and one-sided love affair that could remain private but won’t do anyone any harm by revealing its sordid details.
Dear E,
We’ve been travelling companions now for how long now? On and off, for the last nine months? Something like that. You know I can’t say that they’ve been good times, don’t you? Yet still you keep coming back for more. Why? Why me?
To be fair, I’ve felt the twinges in my stomach many times over. In that respect this isn’t one-sided. But we’re not talking butterflies here, not that wonderful, crazy feeling when you fall in love. Nope, we are talking about twinges, and cramps, and gurgling and all things uncomfortable.
I tried the ignoring technique but your presence is undeniable. I tried to drink and dance to forget, but it was only a momentary distraction and once the hangover subsided you were well and truly back in my life. And I wish you weren’t.
I went to see someone. I needed professional help; it had got to that stage. Again. I tried to explain the impact that you’ve had on my life. I felt understood. It’s not just me that thinks you’re annoying, that enough is enough, you know?
And whilst the professionals figured out how to deal with you, friends told me to build myself up, to stay healthy. I drank carrot and orange juice at the market, despite one of the vendors telling me it’s an ugly drink. I took probiotic supplements. I cooked healthy food. I went to bed early.
But the fighting worsened. It was unbearable. Your final attempts doubled me over in coughing pain; misery accompanied by crying eyes and a running nose and a battle raging in my belly. You did a good job of making me hate you.
Then I heard the news. You’d changed; you were not who I thought you were. No longer parasitical, you tried on a new outfit. Does e-coli suit you? No, quite honestly, no. Maybe if it was only e-coli then I could have fought you better but you were in vicious mode, taking on board acute bronchitis and sickness and fever as your allies. I was outnumbered.
I didn’t want to do it, but I had to. I needed rid of you. Down went the Flucoxin 200g. You laughed at my attempts.
I tried again. Stronger this time. Cefixima 400g. And I didn’t stop there, oh no! Down my throat trickled the rank mix of codeine fosfato and pseudoephedrine chlor. and clorfenamina maleate. Desperate times. You think I’m being nasty? I had to be. No choice. It was on the advice of the professionals. It’s out of my hands now.
So this is where we’re at. I don’t want to see you again. Shouldn’t each partner in a relationship feel strengthened by their connection? All you ever did was weaken me, make me tired.
Time to get out of my life. I’m not in love with you, I’m in love with South America. Please give our relationship a chance. And I’m sure, much as I hate to say it, that you’ll quickly find someone else.
Not yours (and never wanted to be),
Finola
Filed under bolivia, food & drink, health, south america
Stretch and surf: that which epitomises Byron Bay
Although I arrived into Ballina-Byron airport to late January sunshine, I spent the next three days a prisoner indoors, rain refusing to run out. My early impressions of Byron were therefore not great.
‘We live in a rainforest area’, said my good friend Sariya, ‘it rains a lot here’. And over the next weeks, her words rang true. Hot, humid days with a piercing sun and big, blue skies were interspersed with grey days of torrential downpour. It took a while to acclimatise to the heat, the spores or whatever in the air made me feel congested much of the time and I found sleeping difficult, tossing and turning, uncomfortable.
So when was I going to fall for this place? It wasn’t love at first sight (mostly because I couldn’t see a damn thing through the heavy blanket of rain). But things got better. I discovered many of the things that draw in the crowds to this small surf town.
Among other things, Byron Bay in New South Wales, Australia is:
Beachy. Byron life revolves around the beaches and the surf, although surprisingly, a lot of locals don’t actually surf. There are some strong rips and some seriously dangerous areas along this stretch of coastline where swimming is not recommended, but places like The Pass are ever popular spots for people learning to surf (the first day that I went out it wasn’t so great and I smashed up my friend’s board. Not a good moment). Groups gather on the beach in matching tops, practise their pop-ups on the sand before taking to the water. Families hang out in the shade of the trees that fringe the beach and hot, young things wander by giving each other the eye. Out by Main Beach, evenings offer up regular dusk drumming sessions and the opportunity to mix, mingle and party as the hillside fills with small groups of travellers, language students, locals and musicians in the making.
Randomly eventful. Whilst I was in Byron, the place was winding down from the busy summer holiday season but there was still plenty going on including Buddhist teaching workshops, the Sex & Consciousness Conference with its Masked Lovers Ball, Tribal Fusion Belly Dancing performances, and the yoga-focused Spirit Festival. March and April promised even more with popular events such as Bluesfest and Byron Bay International Film Festival.
Aesthetic and beautiful. I sat down for a few minutes at the Sunday Byron Market with a friend whilst her kids played on a bouncy castle slide, and I did some serious people watching. I was a bit intimidated. ‘Those people’, said a local guy when I aired my insecurities, ‘are probably holiday makers and they’re in happy, confident holiday mode, far away from their usual worries’. People were slender, toned, and beautifully and stylishly clothed. They walked tall, perfect posture. Market asides, there just seemed to be so much cool and confidence in Byron, and in my experience that’s the locals and tourists alike. Maybe more so the locals, actually.
Postive-energied. I couldn’t help but feel some of that magical energy that is regularly commented on. Warm people, some pretty out-there experiences, lots of stuff about intuition and energy and vibes. And lots of genuine smiles and hellos from strangers (or friends you have yet to meet, if you subscribe to that philosophy!). People come here for all that, for the way-out opportunities, for the laid-back lifestyle and of course, for the surf (just don’t come thinking you’ll easily score a job). And some people come to find themselves and their Zen and to feed off the energy of this place.
Independently minded. This is evident by the many individual clothing, gift, craft and jewellery shops that line the main streets, the quirky coffee bars and book shops and restaurants. Whilst a few big brands have tried to muscle in, Byron has managed to maintain a feeling of individuality.
Healing and spiritual. In Byron, there are many ways to retune one’s mind, body and soul, from the expected hypnotherapy, massage, tarot, zumba, and of course every type of yoga imaginable (Byron is yoga central) right through to the more curious soul wound healing, kinesiology, iridology, happiness coaching and kahuna bodywork. There is even support for men who want ‘Wild Man’ to help guide them to live ‘a masculine life of integrity, authenticity and freedom’. I almost wish that I was a guy, just so I could try it out.
Healthy and active. The climate and the setting make for some great time spent outdoors doing active stuff. I swam and surfed in a warm sea and shared smiles with other joggers out on dusk runs. I often cycled into town from where I was staying in Suffolk Park along sun speckled bike tracks and through the Arakwal National Park. On my way I would pass by hoards of kids skateboarding to school and join a stream of cycling commuters as I got closer to Byron itself. There does seem to be a complete contrast between the full on healthy, non-drinking, non-smoking puritans and the party pleasure-seekers with their alcohol, drug fuelled fun. Because I don’t totally subscribe to either scene, I did at times feel a bit a bit out of the loop and looked down on. Don’t give me a label. I’ll have a bit of it all, thank you. Let me and others enjoy the healthy lifestyle options available in Byron without being judged on the odd indulgence.
Hedonistic. Alongside the healthy are the hedonists: predominantly the backpacker scene of party people. Byron may be a place of clear complexions and body awareness but it is also the place for some messy, messy nights. Whilst there are places in town to cater for all sorts of tastes, ages and people, the party crowd in the main spots is on the whole pretty young, think late teens early twenties. And they want to indulge: in alcohol, in each other, in the heady atmosphere. But there is more to Byron nightlife too, including a whole range of musicians who busk their hearts out and street performers who keep the post-pub crowds entertained (although you won’t see fire poi or juggling as flames were supposedly banned from Byron’s streets a good few years back).
Coffee loving. I hung out in comfy, cosy coffee shops making use of free WiFi. When I was looking for work, one of the main questions was ‘Can you make coffee?’ Of course I can make coffee, I thought, but until I said it with some conviction, I didn’t even get a look-in. As it turns out, Byronians love their coffee (well, Australians in general love their coffee, I think it’s fair to say) . I met a good few self-proclaimed coffee connoisseurs. Bad coffee could ruin a business. I got it. And I did have some great coffees in friendly, smiley places such as Why Not?, one of many coffee bars scattered around the town.
Social and familiar. Compared to other places that I’ve been based, making friends in Byron was a fairly easy process, providing you made some effort. And I met people who were keen to get out and do stuff, and up for chats and beers and music and dancing. Nearly everyone that I met, local or otherwise, were welcoming, happy to share their space. And with Byron being quite small, it wasn’t long before I was bumping into people I knew, hellos on the street, that sort of thing. Felt good. Note: Don’t park your van outside someone’s house and leave rubbish and beer bottles kicking around. You’ll make friends with no-one but the police who are doing a clampdown on ‘vanpackers’.
In short, Byron has a lot going on. ‘It’s its own little bubble’, said a local, ‘It’s not really representative of the rest of Australia’. Some things are truly bizarre, other stuff more conventional. The beauty is that there is something for every taste. And more than enough energy kicking around to soothe any lost souls.
Residents may bemoan the changes and increasing commercialisation that has taken place in the past ten years, but Byron Bay does still hold considerable charm. It’s still a bit of a hippy town, even if Subway and Sportsgirl have made an appearance. It’s small enough to be cosy, but there’s enough going on to keep it vibrant. I’ll be back before too long.
Filed under activity & sport, australia, beaches, culture, festivals, food & drink, surf
On the bus, my belly started to grumble. It wasn’t a good sign. Maybe I needed food? At a roadside stop I didn’t fancy all the usual snacks and picked up a banana from a fruit stall. The woman wouldn’t sell it to me. Said it wasn’t meant for eating, needed to be cooked first. In the end she gave it to me, refused to take any money. My guess is it was plantain. It was a little… different… but it gave me some energy to keep me going a little while longer.
Arriving back into Quito and it all started to go wrong. The next day came, and I was in a mess. So much for my stronger stomach following the last bug. The old Emperor Montezuma was laughing at me, getting his revenge on my gringo ways, tarring me with the same brush as the Spanish invaders all those many, many years ago. It was my Spanish teacher who told me to look up Montezuma II:
It wasn’t the banana, it wasn’t necessarily the milkshake that I had before leaving Mompiche, but it most certainly wasn’t fun.
Filed under culture, ecuador, health, south america, travel
Well, it got me. The best thing about this? At least it’s happened early on in the trip. Surely now my gut must be ready for anything!
But what’s the etiquette if you’re sharing a dorm room when you’re constantly running to worship the toilet? I contemplated moving into my own room with it’s own bathroom but then realised that, by staying put, if I got really bad then at least people would be around to see me go down…! As it turns out, they were really sweet and offered to help me out.
People tell me that it normally lasts three days, so I got lucky with a short severe bout. I puked, I cried with pain and all the rest, but this is travelling, right?!
Filed under ecuador, health, south america
travelola 