This post might never have been written if Sheila had taken more care over the facts, when she was interviewed by the reporter from the Kentish Gazette about her small, but hopefully growing group of ‘KiliClimb Calendar Girls’. She made me a year older than I am. Isn’t that a heinous sin? Actually I am not that fussed about my age, although hubby Jim would disagree and present evidence to the contrary. I always think that being old is a state of mind rather than to do with years passed. Some people are just born old, while others manage to maintain a youthful outlook well beyond three score and ten. The reason why this would not have been written is that Sheila, who has written more than a few times about altitude sickness, said that she didn’t want any more stories about it. But this one will be told.
Five years ago, when I was just 63, we set off on our Bucket List trip to South America, with a focus on Peru and Bolivia. Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca were among the highlights of our trip. It had been touch and go whether we would make it as just four months before the trip, I went to see an orthopaedic surgeon as one of my hips was playing up. In fact it had been playing up so much that my pelvis was on the point of collapse. So I had emergency surgery, involving three trips to the operating theatre just twelve weeks before our departure date. Maybe it wasn’t sensible, but we went.
We were in a small group of twelve and our itinerary had been worked out carefully to acclimatise us slowly. We saw wonderful Inca sites, some I thought rather more interesting than Machu Picchu, eventually reaching Cusco at 3,300 meters – a lot lower than Kilimanjaro. Cusco was a fascinating town and we were in a hotel with a ‘borrowed’ history in that it was build around a dramatic Inca Palace that Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru had chosen as his base while in Peru. Some of the public rooms had great stretches of Inca wall, made from unimaginably large, irregular blocks of stone, each fitting its neighbour with barely a hairsbreadth between.
It was the time of Halloween and All Saints Day when the Peruvians honour their ancestors. It was startling to see how they had conflated North American ‘Trick or Treat’ with their own version of Christianity. Young children took First Communion decked out as witches with plastic ‘turnip’ lanterns. Fireworks were going off everywhere. And this was where I chose to get altitude sickness, possibly helped by visits earlier in the day to sites at even higher altitude. At first I thought I had picked up a tummy bug as my splitting headache was accompanied by D&V. Immediately our guide put me on a diet that excluded everything except dry bread and cereals and Chicken Soup. I had altitude sickness, probably because I was still somewhat anaemic after surgery.
My biggest worry was about the following day, when we were taking a ten-hour train journey over the Alto Plano at about 4,000 metres. To be on the safe side I took some Immodium early in the morning and at first, on the rather glamorous train, I felt fine. At about ten o’clock I felt really light headed. Our guide called the train hostess who brought oxygen. After ten minutes of oxygen I started to feel better. It didn’t last and I realised I was going to be sick. Sod’s law, the toilet was in use. I propped myself by an open window to get some air as I waited and that was the last I remember. Jim and Patti, our guide, filled in the blanks.
I certainly put my new hip joint to the test as I slithered down the wall into a tight little ball. Patti and one of the hostesses straightened me out along the corridor and arranged me in an appropriate position. I slept on, and on and on and the crowd of worried ladies around me grew. Jim started to wonder where I was – and also about what was going on in the train corridor. He looked closely and was reassured. He recognised my rather natty grey and lime green basketball boots and thought I was in good hands. A few minutes later he thought again and ventured towards the group, just in time to hear Patti and the Chief Hostess discuss a helicopter evacuation. Oh Dear! Then the Chief Hostess started to fill in some ‘incident report’ with Patti providing the answers, like name and nationality. Then she was asked my age and replied, “About 70”! Most of the group were about that. Apparently, I sat bolt upright and announced, “I’m not 70”, before sliding back, while still retaining consciousness. The shock must have brought me round and Jim maintains to this day that I must be quite paranoid about my age.
I was a bit ‘untidy’ as Sheila’s bear Mary Plain (blog 2nd June) would have said, had about forty minutes of oxygen and a couple of those luridly-coloured sports drinks to rehydrate me and while not quite as fit as a fiddle, I managed to watch, photograph and write notes for the rest of the train trip.
So the lesson from that for Sheila, Jae and Oscar is to prime each other with some terrifying words that will raise them from their sickbed. And don’t go if anaemic.
Sorry Sheila!!!