A 22 hour bus ride from Lima to Cusco

Chapter 1: 4 hours 15 minutes in

I’ve already watched 2 movies (Transformers 2 and Old Dogs.) I’ve listened to 2 CDs that a friend made for me before I left. I’ve played around with my camera. It’s dark outside already and I’m bored out of my mind. I have 2 1/2 hours of laptop battery time left, so no more bitching, I need to close the laptop. *Sigh*

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Where are the rest of the chapters, you ask? Well, almost a day after I got to Cusco, here's the rest of the story:

Shortly after writing Chapter 1, we were served dinner as I could see us starting to go into the Andes. Dinner wasn't terrible: pieces of chicken in a light sauce and white rice. I finished eating and within half an hour, my stomach started to hurt. Uh -oh... please, please please, no food poisoning on a bus where it has been explicitly explained that only urinating in the bathrooms is okay.

I tried to go to sleep in my fully reclining chair with my blanket and pillow. I was between sleep and wake for a few hours, tossing and turning as my stomach kept grumbling and my head started to hurt. I got up and went to the bathroom to splash my face with some water. I reached down to grab some toilet paper to dab my face with but there was none there. Was this the buses not-so-subtle reminder to its riders about the int

ended use of the bathroom??

The next 7 hours or so were filled with mo

re tossing and turning. I had a HUGE chair to myself and still I couldn't find a position that felt good. WHY WAS MY HEAD POUNDING?!?!?! At last, at 6am, it comes to me: "Idiot, you have altitude sickness..."

At 6:30am, the bus attendant served us breakfast which consisted of a ham and cheese sandwich, a yogurt, and some sweet pastry/cookie thing. I ate it, hoping that would make me feel better, totally forgetting the advice that if you get altitude sickness, it's better to just drink a ton and not eat much. Within 30 minutes, extreme stomach pain again.

Long, painful story made shorter, we got to Cusco 22 hours after we left Lima, and I wanted to die. The way I felt, was, how do I put it... 30x worse than the worst hangover I've ever had? Yes, that's pretty much how I felt. I got in a cab, asked to

go to my hostel, the whole time talking in Spanglish, trying to nicely tell the driver that no, I didn't want to go dancing with him tomorrow night.

I got to my hostel and begged for a bed, any bed, told the front desk guys that I thought my head was going to explode, and they took me up. The rest of the day was maybe the worst I've ever had physically. I was shaking, throwing up, and couldn't look at anything without my head pounding intensely. One of the guys who works here brought me up Mate de Coca, tea made with coca leaves which is supposed to help someone acclimatize. He checked on me on and off for a few hours, offering to have a doctor come see me, but I knew that would end up costing me money I didn't want to spend on something that happens frequently to people who aren't used to high altitudes.

So, I slept from about 7:30pm - 9:30am, woke up with only a little bit of a headache, and ate 2 pieces of toast with jam. This is the first food I'd had in 27 hours, and man, did it taste good. Now, I'm here, writing for you all, and warning you: it doesn't matter what shape you're in, altitude sickness can affect you, and when it does, it really really sucks.