Sorry about the delay with the posts but I had a good reason and all will be explained!!
From Lima, we went onto Pisco. The trip there was along the coast and it was hard to relax or read cos there were so many damn waves to look at. Some really good setups that need some further exploring! On the second day of the trip I woke up feeling like hell. Bad headache, nausea and just feeling exhausted. Wasn't too stoked but decided not to miss a boat trip out to Ballestas Islands. Straight out of a David Attenborough documentary! These islands are a marine reserve and there are millions of seals, penguins, and a huge variety of sea birds. The locals actually farm guano there (birdshit) and it's big business. Anyway, it's definitely the most birds I've ever seen at one time in my life! Check the photos (all the black dots are birds). Just about everyone on the boat got "blessed" by the birds at some stage. It was like pearl harbour with the birds flying over and letting loose the whole time.
From there it was onto a desert oasis for sand buggying and sandboarding. I decided I was feeling way too sh1t and slept on the bus. The next morning was the world famous Nasca Lines. You can only see them from the air so I dragged my sick ass outta bed and went for the flight. They're really amazing cos it looks like they couldn't possibly have been created by humans thousands of years ago (hence the theory that aliens made them) but I think the Peruvians deserve the credit! There are hundreds of theories but I think it's just signs they made to the Gods to bring them water. Check the photos - bear in mind that each shape is massive!
After the flight I started getting a bit of a fever going. Made it through a night bus trip safely, only managing to soak my clothes with the sweats. By the time we got to the next hotel, things were not good. I was going into full on fevers and shivering with all the blankets and all my clothes on and then half an hour later dying of heat and unable to cool down. Time for the doctor! Luckily they do hotel visits and the doc was pretty convinced it was Salmonella. He did a few blood tests and announced it was negative and must be something else. In the meantime, I had to drop out of all tour activities and rest in bed. Didn't really make sense to me cos Salmonella seemed probable (a week before I was at a restaurant in Lima and 1/4 way through my meal, I noticed that part of the chicken breast I was eating was completely raw). Didn't notice at first cos there was so much sauce as well as ham wrapped over it. I sent it back to be cooked straight away but I definitely should have made like a supermodel and tickled them tonsils!
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I stayed in bed for 4 days, took the prescribed antibiotics and slowly felt better with fewer fevers. Managed to feel good enough to make the flight with the rest of the tour to Cuzco and was feeling pretty confident I'd make the Inca Trail in a few days. Wrooooong - that night the tune of "Night Fever" was blaring and pretty sure I cracked the 40's. Saw a new doctor who looked at the old blood tests I had done and said there was definitely a problem and I needed to hit the hospital (for a few days but I'd still make the Inca trail). Anyway, it just went downhill from there. I was living on drips and in and out of fevers all day and they were getting a bit worse. The nurses were actually showing signs of panic at times - not very comforting. The new blood tests confirmed it was definitely Salmonella which led to Typhoid Fever. But the doctors (some specialists were called in) couldn't work out why the antibiotics hadn't worked and were convinced there was a secondary infection.
After nearly a week in hospital, I'd missed the Inca Trail, Colca Canyon, Machu Pichu, and the Amazon! Pretty much the main highlights. I was pretty damned peeved but also felt over the trip - I just wanted to get better. Some new tests tested positive for TB but were very unreliable so they needed to send me back to Lima to a more advanced hospital for cat scans. But TB is infectious so travel insurance is not allowed to put you on a commercial flight or they will get sued. No problem for them - let's get Colin an air ambulance! Luckily my fevers start to subside and at the last minute they change the air ambulance (which is very slow) for a private jet. The 24 hours before I'm due to fly out seems like a turning point tho and I manage to not have any fevers.
So the private jet eventually arrives and whisks me off to Lima. A doctor and a nurse have to accompany me. At Lima, an ambulance is waiting with another doctor and nurse and a driver who decides that even tho I look ok, I might die so busts the sirens out and tears across town at an impressive speed. At the hospital they do some quick tests and confirm it's not TB. My fever seems to have disappeared too so I get sent to a nice 4 star hotel nearby to monitor myself.
Luckily I've been ok the last 2 days so pretty sure it's all over. Feel like death tho! 6 days spent sleeping in my hotel and 7 days in hospital. I had soooooo many tests I'm pretty sure it was just an experiment to create a clone of myself. I definitely gave enough blood, saliva and urine samples but for a proper clone I think they'd have needed a few more stool samples cos as you all know I'm pretty full of shit!
So plan is to chill out for 2 more days to get some strength back and then await final test results on Monday. I could then rejoin my tour but at the moment I'm pretty over it. I missed all the best bits and my travel insurance will cover the cost of the trip so would rather restart from scratch another time. So I might be in SA a lot sooner than originally planned!! Just a bit worried about flights outta here cos it's Easter and I probably still have to fly via London. So chances are I will be in London soon for another week and then head to SA.
