Sunday, the last day of carnaval, was the day that I really got into the carnaval spirit. After being sprayed in the face repeatedly with lemon scented foam I threw down my nine bolivianos at the nearest foam vendor (a 10 year old girl wearing the popular denim bucket hat with one letter initial stitched on the front) and chased down my attacker with my foam ammunition. For the rest of the day I kept the foam canister at the ready in the right arm of my poncho-raincoat, ready to strike unsuspecting children and adults that thought I was unarmed. I also watched the parade from the plaza, the area broadcasted on TV and to see how whole other sections of town looked during the celebrations. The music went on late into the night again and there seems to be no end to the water fights.
Ida and I were going to head to the Salt Flats on a Monday night bus after we went to the doctor, despite her still feeling unwell, but there was no night bus, no busses at all to Uyuni due to the heavy rain (Bolivia has declared a state of emergency, whole lot of flooding going on). The only way to go is by train, which only runs on tuesday and friday... which wouldn´t give me enough time to go tour the salt flats and return for my flight in La Paz. The salt flats are incredible. I have seen pictures. It kills me a little that we won´t be able to go...
But it worked out for the best. Ida was still feeling horrible and we decided we should return to La Paz so she could have better medical attention. This turned out to be a more difficult task than we thought. It turned out that tuesday was also a holiday, so instead of the bus station being open and being able to just find a desk selling tickets to La Paz, there was a free for all outside of the closed station. Busses were departing from all sides of the station and people where frantically trying to get on the busses. Bus drivers took advantage of the chaos by upping the prices and tempers were running high since people would run onto busses and save seats for everyone in their family, so being the 10th person in line was a deceptive place to be. Ida was sick, I was still getting fatigued easily, but this was really too much running around for her at the time. So I got quite the adrenaline rush when she stayed with the bags and it was my job to get us on the bus... which involved me running all around the area finally finding a bus heading to La Paz, finding two separate empty seats on a bus and begging the passengers next to them to save them for me, getting our bags under the bus and getting Ida and I on the bus. I was really annoyed when we couldn´t leave when members the family that had rushed on to save all the seats in the back didn´t show up, and didn´t show up, and didn´t show up... But finally we were on our way. We drove past small towns with small bands and small crowds celebrating in the streets, some stopping to hurl water balloons and open windows in the bus. Blue skies and very eastern Washington looking scenery passed by as I read my latest book Instanbul memories of a city by Orhan Pamuk.
The very first thing on our agenda when arriving to La Paz was finding ¨Clinica Del Sur¨, the clinic suggested in Ida´s lonely planet guide. We took a taxi to the clinic, which as the name implies is in the south zone or more suburb type area of La Paz. Fortunately the clinic was open for the holiday and Ida could see a doctor right away. The doctor in Oruro that we visited basically just prescribed Ida some anti-diarhea meds and told her not to eat food sold in the street. This doctor went through the same routine, but also wanted to run lab tests... exactly what we wanted. The truly best part of this whole ordeal was when the doctor asked about Ida´s diarhea. Now Ida knows more spanish than I do, so maybe I just understood some of his questions better because I knew what questions he would ask... he asked the consistancy and I asked her in english, same for when he asked the color. In response, Ida put down her head and answered ¨depends, depends on whether I have Fanta or Coke¨ which was really too funny for us not to burst out laughing, all she had eaten in the last 4 or so days was Coke and Fanta. The nurse thought that this answer was soooo not funny.
Ida had her lab tests done and within 15 minutes she was taken back to hear the big news: Ida´s illness is caused by AMOEBAS. They where going to run more tests, but with these initial results we could atleast get the medicine to stop the amoebas that the doctor said from the looks of it she´s had in her system for atleast 15 or 20 days. It was while she received this news that I called the Barjas, the uncle and family of my first and favorite college roommate Margo. Rodrigo and his wife Ana really saved the day for us. Ida found out she would have to return in two days and we had no idea if there was a nearby hostel where she could have the much needed quick access to a bathroom. It just so happened that Rodrigo´s family lives in the South zone where the clinic is located and they came and picked Ida and I up at the clinic, took us by the pharmacy and to their beautiful home.
It was that night that I started thinking that maybe, just maybe amoebas were the reason why I still had minor stomach problems, fatigue and no appetite. So the next morning we returned to the clinic and it was my turn to, a-hem, give a stool sample (a poop pot as Ida called it) and await the results. Ida joined the doctor and I for the official results, so she was there when he said ¨You don´t have what she has... You have something else." It is ordeals like being sick together and making the best of the miserable times that bring about the sort of humor that Ida and I now share. We both bursted out laughing, we were sick at the same time with two different things and every day our illnesses were seeming more complicated. The lab results showed that I have bacterial gastroenteritis, and that it was time for me to use the Cipro that I was prescribed at the travel clinic before I left on this adventure.
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