A Visit To The Hospital
Contrary to what many think upon reading the title, the hospital visit was not for me because of my numerous health issues since arriving.
The day started out almost like any other day, but with a greater lack of sleep than usual because the woman who inhabited the room next to the one we had kindly been offered by Giovanni, woke up at 5 AM and started listening to loud music 10 to 15 minutes later. The resulting lack of sleep made Göran and me slower than usual, so to Jacques’ great frustration, we didn’t manage to be done at the agreed-upon time of 8:30 AM.
After going to the supermarket to buy some bread and more peanut butter and buying some fresh empanadas at a street stall, he was therefore in a hurry to get out of the city and begin getting some kilometres on his counter. Unfortunately, things went amiss only around 5 minutes after we left the supermarket. Luckily, Jacques didn’t get hit by a car in its total, but by a car door of a woman who didn’t look before she banged it wide open, knocking Jacques and his bike over onto the corner of the concrete pedestrian sidewalk. We were all shocked and furious at the lady for her carelessness. Luckily he was wearing his helmet and the wide bags prevented one side of his body from being squished under the bike too much during the fall. Nonetheless, he was injured. There was a deep, long cut on his finger at first sight that was heavily bleeding and he certainly sustained some non-visible or not yet visible injuries such as heavy bruises or overstretched tendons (Zerrungen und Prellungen) as well.
He is at the hospital getting stitches on his finger as I am writing this, guarding the bikes on the street. The poor lady who had caused this feels terrible and is in emotional distress as well. She accompanied them to the clinic, paid for the damages on the bike and bag, and profoundly apologised repeatedly. I apologised too, because right after the accident, when I saw that Jacques was bleeding, I screamed at her too, asking what she had been thinking not looking before opening the door. Not my finest moment, so I apologised for that as well.
Switching to past tense now, because obviously I am writing this part after everything had unfolded. When Jacques and Göran returned, all was well. I had bought Jacques some freshly squeezed orange juice to get his blood sugar levels back up and to pamper him a little after what had happened. Göran had done a great job accompanying and assisting him. All in all, we had distributed our tasks very quickly and very well and were happy with how we had handled the situation. We continued cycling (with more care than before!) on a road that led out of the city and was sadly bordered by loads of garbage on both sides, until we reached a gas station on the outskirts of Juliaca. There we refilled our fuel bottle and enjoyed our empanadas which were still warm. They were filled with a truly delicious, juicy and well-spiced filling of vegetables, potato and two small pieces of chicken, which I took out and gave to the men. Afterwards we cycled through a pretty boring and barren landscape with strong, chilly gusts of wind coming from… the front? I don’t think that’s an actual way of expressing it, but you guys are smart enough to know what I mean 😉
We cycled on for around 10 km until we found a place where we could finally eat the pineapple Göran had bought the day before. Preparing it is a labour of love, but it is worth the effort, and with all my stomach issues we try to mainly buy produce which can be peeled if we intend to eat it raw. Less risk of harmful bacteria entering my body and halting our progress. We sat on a crumbling clay brick wall under one of the few small trees that graced the barren and flat Altiplano landscape. We subsequently cycled on for many kilometres with a gruelling headwind, until we had lunch in a field, only to continue cycling with headwind afterwards. We eventually reached the peninsula we had chosen as our route, based on Giovanni’s advice. From here on, we still had quite some kilometres left to go, but at least the scenery changed and turned much more beautiful. Due to some complaints about the length of my stories, I will not describe it, but hope that we will find a picture on one of our phones that manages to do it some justice. In reality, it is prettier and greener than in most of our photographs though. On our way to Llachon, we reached a small village where all people seemed to either be dressed in traditional clothing or in their Sunday best. The people we asked didn’t want us to take pictures of them, so we respected that, but they were willing to answer why they were all dressed up, celebrating, and heading towards Puno. Apparently, it was a regional anniversary celebration and not only the people, but also the town had been decorated and scrubbed up for the occasion.
Eventually, we reached Llachon in the early evening, where Casa Valentin had been recommended to us as a beautiful campsite — and it didn’t disappoint. Apart from the nicely level, soft patch of grass where we could pitch our tent, the location boasted a beautiful view over Lake Titicaca and even a white sand beach. We instantly liked the place. To our surprise, the only other people we met at the accommodation were all French without exception, instead of the usual diverse mixture of different nationalities we usually encounter in touristic areas. All of them, without fail, were very kind people though. Especially the ones we were going to meet tomorrow…
We set up our tent, cooked dinner together, chatted with local people, washed, and went to sleep. We had cycled quite the stretch today and were therefore happy to hit the hay.
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