What Goes Up Must Come Out

  I have always taken my oxygen for granted.  Not so in Bolivia!  From the moment we touched down, I was literally gasping for air.  Altitude sickness from the decreased oxygen in the air when you are up so high is a strange beast.  Some people do not feel anything, others get light headed or a headache, and still others get sick.  I just couldn´t breath, much less breath while carrying my suitcases.  With blue lips, Michelle escorted me to the hotel the first night.  In the middle of this fitful night´s sleep punctuated by periodically waking up gasping for air, Michelle mysteriously got sick in the middle of the night with stomach pains and throwing up from the altitude!  Fortunately we both made it through the night, and besides sounding like we were 99 year olds weighing 400 lbs each as we labored up and down steps for the next couple of days, our altitude sickness gradually subsided.  Who knew that we could get sick just by showing up to a place! 
  Altitude unfortunately was not the only sickness inducing part of our trip to Bolivia.  The lack of tourist infrastructure (see next post) lent itself to food that was not entirely healthy.  Although we had eaten 3 times with a group already in a nice little vegetarian restaurant in Bolivia´s colonial legislative center, Sucre, the bowl of cream soup that I ate had me in terrible shape with a huge bout of food poisoning a few days into our stay in Bolivia.  Even Michelle felt stomach cramps because of the taste she took of the soup.  48 hours of Poweraid later I was back to normal.
   Another incident occured when, like old pals, food and altitude teamed up on Michelle.  Our last night in Bolivia was a celebration with our travel companions.  Michelle ordered a fruity peach daccari and liked it so much that two hours later she ordered another.  She became tipsy, and then, with no warning, her body skipped the drunk phase without passing go and plunged her into the alcohol poisoning phase with nausea and dizziness!  We had forgotten that alcohol hits you 10 times as hard at altitude as at sea level.  More toilet time an hour later and all was well.  But still, Bolivia had taken its toll on us in the form of our vital fluids and we were happy to fly away to happier stomach fields!

  As a side note, I was uncomfortable one other time on the trip, but it was Bolivia´s wildlife that nabbed me.  I was taking a picture of this really super adorably cute bunny rabit chinchilla relative with a long furry tail on a rock outcropping in the desert, when its evil set in.  It jumped with such awesome speed that I couldn´t help but follow my photographic instincts and move to get a picture of its deft skills.  But, its insiduous trap was laid, for when I moved, a small rock by my foot impeding my way resulting in a full face plant on the rocks beneath the evil chinchilla.  I could almost here its malevolent laughter as I nursed my cuts and bruises.  Be wary future travelers, cute animals are not all that they seem.

Don't trust his cuteness...it lies.