jungle trek: an aborted version, including the tale of how a guide is fired

hello folks!

so you have now learnt of caroline´s jungle trek experience, which was very exciting and enjoyable (if you have not read this yet go to the previous two entries). my experience was a little different, unfortunately!

so we bus´ed about four hours to the top of a mountain (about 4000 metres asl). the guide got the bikes off the top of the van and prepped them. we put on our helmets and wooly hats and jumpers and raincoats (for the cold wind) and gloves, and after a quick briefing off we scooted, or rather cycled. the van followed about 100 metres behind us.

we were on a fancy new bitumen road, heading down a mountain, keeping to the right as you`re supposed to on peruvian roads, and keeping away from the steep cliff-face to the left dropping off to a considerable fall were you to go over (no railings). to the right, there was a deep, steep-sided triangular, cement ditch to collect rainfall run-off and/or the frequent rockfalls.

i was daydreaming, scooting down with a smile on my face and thinking of a time i rented a bike in christchurch (i´d completely forgotten about that day). literally about three minutes into the ride i suddenly realised how close my bike wheel was to the ditch at the right. too late!! looking down, i saw the wheel drop slightly into the ditch; i tried to correct it back onto the road but the next thing I knew I was lying on my back on the bitumen a few metres in front of my bike, and a number of body parts hurt. (nothing was broken.)

thirty seconds later i was surrounded by people, and nothing hurt at all. in fact, i felt so good that I wanted to get back on my bike again! (luckily, nobody would let me.)

they helped me sit up, and i could see that my leggings had ripped off both my knees and i´d skinned the right one well good. there was a little blood on my left elbow, and quite a lot of bruising there and on my right knee (though I didn´t realise this til later). i´d ripped my left glove completely in half (though my hand was fine). i scratched my face, too, but not very badly.

one of the guys, John, who was a lovely wouldn´t-hurt-a-fly fellow from Scotland who was very kind to me in the coming days, suggested that he could take a photo of the wound on my knee. I think he was trying to cheer me up. unfortunately for him, i react to stress and pain by becoming a rather unpleasant human being, so i replied with an agressive, ¨NO I DON´T WANT A F***ING PHOTO! WHAT THE F*** IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHAT AM I GOING TO DO, SHOW IT TO MY MOTHER?! I DON´T F***ING THINK SO!!¨ .... everyone laughed, kind of nervously. sorry John. if you ever read this, I apologise!

Lion said by the time she reached the group again everyone told her, ¨yes she seems to be alright but i think she´s just a little pissed off about the whole thing.¨ hahaha. i know i shouldn´t be, but i´m vaguely proud of that. at least they didn´t say i was a crybaby!

the guide Frank turned up and held out some sort of dirty tissue that he proposed to place onto my right knee. I refused adamantly (at least my aggressive state was good for something)! this is when I found out that he did not have ANY kind of first aid kit. not so much as a bandaid! luckily, i had a few clean bandages and a little bottle of iodine in my own bag in the van, which i purchased in australia five months ago (at the time i felt vaguely like a hypochondriac but now i am very glad)!

nobody else in the group had brought a first aid kit (even though a number of them had one at their hostel back in Cusco) because they were told the guide would have one. in fact, out of all the tour groups we met on the way to macchu picchu in the coming days, all of them said that a) their guide told them he´d have a first aid kit and b) he didn´t. I will come back to this later.

anyway, I had to sit in the van the rest of the day watching everyone cycle down the hill. it looked like fun. we stayed in Santa María that night, by which point I established that I could not walk without the help of Lion´s walking stick. this state of affairs continued, despite my hopes, for the next two days, so in fact I did no trekking whatsoever. two colectivos (a kind of shared taxi), a train and a great deal of boring waiting later (thanks to John for lending me a book) I met the others in Aguas Calientes, and caught the offensively expensive 25-minute bus to Macchu Picchu.

Macchu Picchu, I´ve gotta say, was completely worth it. and my leg did feel well enough that day (sort of - i´m paying for it now) to do a 45-min hike to the Sun Gate, where you get a view from above. not quite as exciting as the ladder-mountain Lion climbed, but it probably felt like as much of an achievement!

anyway, there is more to this story. in Santa Teresa, where we were staying the second night, I attempted to find another bandage so I could change the one on my knee, but I couldn´t. all the tiny pharmacies or tiny medical clinic (with one nurse, and an assistant) had available was some coarse guaze that I knew would stick to the wound, so I figured I was better off leaving my bandage on. (if you recall, none of the guides had first aid kits.)

unfortunately my bandage stuck anyway, and I woke up on the morning of day three in considerable pain. my knee hurt so much I was worried that it was infected (it wasn´t, luckily, and still isn´t), but I learnt to my consternation that I was eight hours´ bumpy bus ride from Cusco and the bus wouldn´t leave til that arvo, so I had no choice but to risk the nurse in the tiny medical clinic. I didn´t trust her and she knew it, but to her credit she was very lovely and explained everything she was going to do.

the bandage was so badly adhered to the wound that it took her half an hour to remove it. (one of the more painful experiences of my life, and by this time I was DEFINITELY a crybaby.) she spoke no english, so the guide came with me to translate. he also had to translate, due to her curiousity, the meaning of the word ¨f***¨ that I was yelling periodically. sorry, nurse. well, I´m sure she´s heard worse in Spanish.

this cost me 45 soles, which is not that much money (about 20 australian dollars) but because the guide didn´t have a first aid kit (if he had, I would have been able to change the bandage myself, and also I felt the agency should learn that not taking a first aid kit is NOT okay) I decided when we got back that I wanted the agency to pay me back for it. we´d booked the tour through our hostel, and they agreed, so they gave the ol´ boss a bell.

the boss and the guide were supposed to turn up at the hostel in half an hour to discuss it. Lion and I had the feeling Frank, the guide, was going to get blamed, but I believed (and I still do) that it´s the agency´s responsibility to make sure the guide has all the right safety stuff. so we were planning to stress that belief; but they didn´t turn up. the manager of our hostel, after 45 minutes, gave us the money back himself and told us that the guide had admitted he didn´t have a first aid kit, and that because of that he was going to lose his job.

I doubt they were joking. after I reported them to the hostel they had to do something drastic, otherwise the hostel would have stopped referring their guests to them and they would have lost a lot of work.

the manager of the hostel claimed that the agency gave all their guides first aid kits, and that they just don´t take them on the treks. I don´t believe this at all. there must periodically be accidents: and none of the guides had kits! surely some of them would be responsible enough to take them. and if it is, as they claimed, a sackable offense not to take them, surely they´re not all idiots? but I will never know, I suppose. I feel a little bad for Frank. but the manager claimed he´d find another job with a different agency, so I suppose he´ll be okay.

perhaps I got the message across to the agency about the first aid kits, even if they did choose a scapegoat first. I hope so.

anyway my knee: is very slowly getting better. after five days there´s still a lot of skin missing and I have to use Lion´s stick to walk, so I`ve been told I have to keep it immobilised and elevated for a while. BORING. we`re about to take a 20-hour bus to Lima, so that will be a bit of forced immobilisation at least! I still haven´t been able to find a decent bandage and I had to go through the rip-off of a stuck bandage procedure twice more (not as bad as the first time luckily). I´m hoping to find something decent in Lima.

okay I´m hungry and this is a great deal for you all to read so time to finish! can´t wait for my knee to get better so I can regale you all with more adventures. make sure you read Lion´s posts as well, her stories of that hike are hardcore. LATER, robocop xxx