Apparently, its time for me to loose some weight. As of yesterday, I have become involuntarily bulimic.
This doesn’t surprise me. I’ve been expecting some sort of food poisoning for awhile now. I was ok with the alpaca, the piranha, the llama, the ginnea pig (Dave and I didn’t realized we were sitting right next to their pen till after dinner) , the market juice, the ice cream off the street, multiple almuerzos (set lunches, where you get what you get) from some pretty sketchy local places (not to mention the one I ate at right before getting on the train to Uyuni- it was one of those lunches, well really one of those places, that every ounce of my body told me not to eat- lunch was triangular and fried and I think it might have been one of those animal parts you cant find in a grocery store) Hell, I dropped a roll on the street in La Paz and ate it (five second rule) and none of those things made me sick…
No, I play it safe before my tour, only to get sick on the last day in the salt flats (which are amazing and highly recommended if you ever happen to be in Bolivia- really surreal, miles and miles of salt… and flamingos in icy lagoons, a hotel completely made of salt, beds, tables, bar and all, really cool... if you don’t have food poisoning) Day three of the tour I wake up in a room with 5 of my new closest friends (a really awesome Dutch family) the middle of no where (cant remember the name of the place, only that it was 4,300m up and -14°C) not feeling all to hot, thinking Ill feel better in the morning (we are waking up at 4 to see the sun rise somewhere)
Well, at 5 (apparently our driver slept in) we are woken up by a knock on the door and all frantically rush to pack our stuff and get in the car (no breakfast till 8) Not thinking I take my malaria meds on an empty stomach (which has never been a problem before, although before I always ate breakfast with in an hour or so, and was not subjected to sitting in the back of a cramped land cruiser for 2 hours with nothing to eat) So, I spent about two hours trying not to throw up, rummageing around and finding a part of a snickers (this didn´t really help) before we got to the geysers and bubbling mud pits at dawn (again, really impressive if youre not concentrating on not vomiting)… then, poof… I felt better.
Frankly, I felt great. I figured my meds had finally absorbed and I was going to be OK. Off to the Green Lagoon, more flamingos, breakfast, and a thermal hot spring we could swim in (getting out was the hard part, it was still below freezing out) Driving, driving, driving… then lunch at a quaint little town… dun, dun, dun (that’s the sound of ominous foreboding)
Apparently, something at lunch didn’t agree with me, I’m gong to blame the tuna (I knew I shouldn’t have eaten it, fish in a land locked country... what was i thinking?) Athough, it didn’t affect anyone else. But they were Dutch, maybe they’re used to bad seafood. For the next four hours in the Land Cruiser I counted down till I could get back to my hotel and chuck out the extra 3 dollars for a private bathroom (bringing the grand total for my room to a big 7 dollars)
Upon arriving back in Uyuni I practically ran to my hotel, unfortunately missing pizza with my new surrogate family (who, I cant stress enough, were awesome) I ponyed up my three bucks for a private bano, and spent the next hour or so praying to the porcelain god then passing out and hoping to feel better in the morning.
Well, the good news is, I woke up this morning and was able to hold down food (YEA!) The bad news is I’m stuck in Uyuni till 10:30 tonight (there is nothing to do here… minus the internet of course) Now I’m just trying to figure out how to keep myself busy till my train leaves for Tupiza (for anyone who is interested, Tupiza is the small Bolivian town near where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were gunned down by the Bolivian Army) I sure am looking forward to getting in at 4:30am. Then maybe I can have a proper breakfast, and not just toast.
