Appendicitis

The capitol building in La Paz

We finally got to bed around 1:00 AM, and woke again at 5:00 to take a trip to Cuzco, Peru. We had spent three days with an organized tour; now we would spend the rest of our trip on our own.

Several days later, things took an ugly turn: I got sick. In spite of this, we flew to Sucre, Bolivia. Sucre is an absolutely charming city of around 100,000 people. At 9,000 feet elevation, oxygen is gloriously abundant. Sucre is the judicial capitol of Bolivia. (This is a good trivia question: there are two countries in the world with more than one capitol city. They are South Africa, with three, and Bolivia.) We stayed in the Hotel Colonial, on the town square.

I got sicker, with intestinal bleeding, and finally we called a local doctor. The South America Handbook recommended Dr. Gastón Delgadillo Lora, so Barbara phoned him. He came directly to our hotel and became quite worried; I had an inflamed appendix and might need an appendectomy. After tests, he came back in the afternoon with the diagnosis of Salmonella food poisoning.

Dr. Gastón, as we came to call him, spoke excellent English, although he said he was more comfortable with French or German. He visited our hotel room three times a day for three days. At each visit he gave me huge injections of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories. He stayed an hour each time, to make sure I didn't have adverse reactions. We discussed philosophy, music, history, and travel. He helped Barbara change our tickets at the local airline office, and helped order food when I could eat again. His final charge for all this work was $500.00, and he doubtless would have lowered it if we had shown the slightest hesitance! He told us that he had traveled to New York, and he knew what it was like to be a stranger in a strange city.

We still correspond with the wonderful Dr. Gastón and hope to visit him and his lovely city someday soon.

We flew back to La Paz for one more day and night before returning Home.