To follow on from beloved Cusco, we bused from Cusco to Lima (19 hrs) where we stayed in a lovely new hostel run by a couple of young French guys. Whilst they were lovely and very helpful, when I say a lovely hostel I largely mean good beds. Real pillows, and an actual doona...heaven! The beds at hostels are generally sub par and the pillows are bloody awful. I used to be quite a fussy sleeper (always needed two pillows of the right size, and could never sleep on buses etc) but South America has certainly cured me of that. I can now fall asleep anywhere, in anything and with anything (bed bugs, mosquitoes, smelly fellow bus passengers who snore and encroach on your space). I decided to stay in Lima longer and have some solo time while Caz and Brendan and Teresa headed to Mancora on the sunny coast of Peru.
I enjoyed my time in Lima but was pleased to leave as the weather is quite depressing (cloudy, raining) and the city its self did not sit that well with me (not that any of the capitals really do). The other issue I found was the locals are exceptionally difficult to understand and I felt like my grasp of spanish took an immediate nose dive. Not only do they speak very quickly but there is no announciation of words. They simply come tumbling out of their mouths at warp speed and then hit the floor. I thought my speaking and listening had been gradually improving but after seven attempts to unsuccessfully order a sandwhich I conceeded I may as well have been speaking ducth (and potentially may well have been) and once again started a game which is a cross between sharades and sign language. Needless to say (and as pictures will attest to) I didn't starve so I suppose that's a win.
I hopped a bus to Mancora and arrived to find beautiful sunshine and a fairly spectacular hostel (photos to follow) which is more like a resort than a hostel. I had a great first day by the pool and on the beach and dressed up for our first dinner out in town. When we arrived at the restaurant I started sweating and feeling quite unwell. I left the guys and headed back to the hostel to have a lie down for a while. The next three hours were potentially the most uncomfortable of my life! The stomach cramps were severe and unrelenting and I managed to expel through a variety of unfortunate methods, just about every molecule of liquid in my body.
I knew it was perhaps more than just a stomach bug when I woke up on the bathroom floor after an undetermined amount of time with a considerable lump on my forehead and a black and blue shoulder. I must have fainted and taken out the wall on my way down I think. Caz came back to the hostel after dinner and I told her I thought I was quite unwell and might need to think about seeing if there is any sort of medic or Doctor in town as dehydration was starting to become a problem.
Surprisingly there was a Doctor in Mancora and after being told it would cost 30 soles (would have paid $1000 at that point) it was organised for him to come and check me out. Luckily he spoke English and seemed to know what he was doing and after some Doctorly poking and prodding and showing him my tongue he told me I was very dehydrated and would need to go to hospital to be on a drip and IV antibiotics. Fabulous.
My ´ambulance ride´ to the hospital involved me barefoot in shorts and t-shirt with the doctor on the back of a tuk tuk. Even doubled over in pain I still managed to have a giggle at the ridiculousness of it all. The clinic was luckily fairly clean and they sorted me out with an IV and a variety of drugs (which are bloody marvelous things) and had me feeling enormously better relatively quickly. The Doctor advised I had E.Coli most likely and would need to be on antibiotics for a week. I had to laugh when just after they had pumped me full of drugs they asked if I was allergic to anything. Caz and our friend Teresa who is a nurse had followed in another tuk tuk and through out the treatment were busily checking the needles were clean etc and writing down the drugs used. Caz refused to leave as I was in la la land after being pumped full of pain meds so she stayed on a mattress on the floor for the night which was a very kind sisterly thing to do. They kept me in for 24 hours and Teresa and Caz took shifts visiting which was incredibly lovely of them both considering the beach and beautiful sunshine were beckoning. I finally convinced the hospital I was okay to leave and headed back to the hostel where I spent a slow next couple of days recuperating. I am proud to say three days later I had a cocktail in hand and painted the town red (well perhaps a light shade of pink anyway).
On my last day I had my long awaited surf lesson on the beach below our hostel. I had an inkling that I was going to be a bit of a whiz and was already dreaming about my career change and months spent travelling the world on the pro tour. I soon learned that surfing is bloody hard work and not as easy as it looks - dang nab it. Whilst there were definitely some moments of rather wobbly standing on the board I'm not sure I'll be winning any world championships any time soon. Although I'm sure after another lesson or two the talent I'm sure is lurking just beneath the surface will emerge and a dazzling surfing spectacular will ensue.
We caught a bus to the Ecuadorean border and I felt quite sad to be leaving Peru and didn’t feel like I’d spent the time I wanted to there. I was disappointed to have missed Arequipa (Colca Canyon) and had serious thoughts about heading back south once I had crossed the border. I decided to press on into Ecuador which is where I will leave it for now. Hope you’re all well and happy!
