Travel sickness

Yesterday was the first time I have ever felt my body give way to something invisible... OK that´s not strictly true as there have ben a few nights drinking when I have inexplicably been unable to use my legs without a detailed explanation of the process, however yesterday´s hike was without the presence of alcohol.

Yesterday Gem and I climbed Volcan Agua which stands at 3,772 meters above sea level. I´m not a mountaineer...England has dark satanic hills .. not mills, Thatcher got rid of the last of those... so the climb was always going to be a new experience but then I discovered the additional joy that is altitude sickness.

It´s a hard sensation to describe, the first 3 hours of the climb were fine, slower than usual, but when we got to what looked like the summit we happily rounded a corner to find we were still about 3 kms from the top. Ordinarily it would have taken about another hour to climb, but I quickly began experiencing of the symptoms listed below, it took 2 hours and I´m proud to say, required me to find massive amounts of mental fortitude, something I´m not noted for. Gem was like a pack horse and despite some huge blisters, she gamely led the way. My invisble foe pushed back at me and I kept thinking about Geoff Capes, once the Worlds Srongest Man, now celebrated budgie breeder. During many competitions he complained like a little bitch and I could never understand why - he was massive and a yokel, but it wasn´t altitude sickness that Geoff suffered from - just a lack of backbone. Yesterday however, I sympathised with him. I looked down at my legs so many times and felt that there was superhuman strength lurking inside them but there was no way of tapping into it. I lolloped along like a drunken mime artist and eventually we reached the top but to be honest I didn´t feel any sense of achievement, just an overwhelming sense of relief and then later anxiety because after 5 hours of crawling we had just 3 hours of light left to get down to base camp and a cup of hot bovril with fellow whining English explorers Michael Palin and Brian Blessed (I have seen both whinging at high altitudes on TV).

• Lack of appetite, nausea, or vomiting
• Fatigue or weakness
• Dizziness or light-headedness
• Pins and needles
• Shortness of breath upon exertion
• Persistent rapid pulse
• Drowsiness
• General malaise

Today, the flush of success I felt post mountain, was put into perspective after a small boy and his incredibly emaciated mother approached me asking for money to buy medicine. The woman could barely walk and both looked like they had been driven to the point of desperation. I thought of my pointless staggerings up the volcano and considered all that is wrong wth travelling whilst sucking down large amounts of cake and coffee.