Beth and I rose at 3:40 in the freezing cold to get ready for our nine hour tour to see nearby geysers. We threw on 9 layers, the first being our bathing suits since we had been told that we should jump in the thermal pool near the geysers later in the day. We went outside our hostel at 4am and got in the bus that would take us to the geysers. Unfortunately, we were the last ones in and were jammed in the back, which would be part of Beth’s undoing.

We huddled together, hoping the other 19 people in the van would help to warm things up, being that there was no heating. We tried to snooze the two hour drive up the mountain, but were unsuccessful due to the incredible unevenness of the rocky, unpaved roads. We arrived around 6am at 15,000 feet, and stepped out of the van into a stunning, body convulsing, three degree freeze.

We were at the entrance to the park, and the whole group piled into a small wood cabin to pay our entrance fee. I was struggling a bit to breathe, being 5,000 feet higher than a certain Moose Lodge in Colorado, where I suffered from some pretty unfun altitude sickness the previous summer. Beth was also teetering on the edge of malady, being prone to motion sickness and also struggling to suck in oxygen due to the height and the cold.

We decided to head back to the van to attempt to warm ourselves. I hopped on, being the first one in the group to return, but sensed that Beth wasn’t behind me. I turned around and saw her doubled over, puking.

I ran to her, rubbing her back, and contemplated getting out a camera. (Before you jump to leave a comment about how horrible a girlfriend I am, shortly after this escapade Beth asked if I got it on tape.) Right at this moment, the entire group came filing back to the van, with Beth’s heaving in clear view. The overly boisterous tour guide came lumbering over and asked me what we had for dinner last night. I told him that it wasn’t food poisoning, that it was probably the ride up or the altitude.
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“I need to know what you ate last night so that I can figure out how to help you,” he said.

“We had fish and potatoes,” I replied. (It was actually really tasty. Salmon with an avacado-honey sauce and spicy mashed potatoes. Unfortunately, it was now on the ground.)

“What?!?” he asked, clearly disgusted. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to eat a big dinner the night before?”

“No, no one told us that,” I said, getting increasingly irritated with his condescension and wanting him to get to the point. “It wasn’t a big dinner. We split one plate between the two of us.”

“But potatoes!” he exclaimed. “That is very heavy.”

I didn’t respond, thinking this was fairly nonsensical, and just waited for him to give us his expert opinion on a cure.

“Coca Tea,” he said after a thoughtful pause. “That should do the trick.”

Back in the van, Beth and I tried to figure out what the previous night’s dinner had to do with anything, since we had learned back in Africa from Olais the Great that Coca Tea was a well-known cure for altitude sickness, regardless of what was in your stomach. Beth then started wondering if she should even try the coca tea, trying to determine whether or not coca leaves are a narcotic. (After breaking her leg earlier in the trip, Beth learned that she is allergic to narcotics, and… can’t keep them down.)

We arrived at the geyser field before sunset and saw huge plumes of steam shooting out of craters in the earth. Some craters were filled with lava, and some with water. The tour guide put some milk and hot chocolate cartons into one of the water filled craters to heat it up, and laid out some cheese sandwiches that he explicitly told Beth to not eat.

I tried the hot chocolate and wolfed down a sandwich, barely able to chew through my chattering teeth. The guide then brought Beth some Coca Tea, which she sipped slowly. We waited for the sun to come up, wondering out loud why it was so important to come so early in the morning and vowing that this would be our last 4am-rise tour. The tea was warm, but was starting to make Beth feel a bit queasy again, so she stopped drinking it. (At least we don’t have to worry about Beth becoming a crack addict.)

Finally, the sun began to rise over the geyser field, which actually was a fairly dazzling event (though I’m not sure if it is worth braving 15,000 feet and 3 degree temperatures). Despite our crankiness, illness, and discomfort, we walked around a bit and commented on how incredible the geyser field actually was and how pretty the pools were with the sun reflecting off the hot water and ice.

After sunrise, we all jumped back in the van and were driven a short distance to another geyser field. This one had the thermal pool, and Beth and I could only laugh at the guide’s (increasingly smarmy) insistence that we strip and get in. At the beginning of the day, I was pretty determined to do it, but I was wholly unprepared for the near zero degree temperatures. The thought of getting in wasn’t bad, but the thought of having to get back out was unbearable. Shockingly, a couple did jump in, and before we left another tour group arrived and began jumping in one at a time.

We walked around this geyser field, Beth feeling slightly recovered, and we were impressed to find warm rivers, small hot ponds, and big craters filled with bubbling liquid. Here, we were surrounded by mountains filled with yellow plants called Coirons and the sun was finally beginning to heat things up (to a sweltering 15 degrees).

There were massive holes with thick plumes of smoke hissing rapidly out and into the air. Stones were set around the hole, with some spelling simply “NO” with an arrow. Apparently some tourists had recently thought to take a dip in this scorching lava and had met their end. (Beth: I think they actually accidentally fell in, but the guide was speaking in Spanish, so I’m not totally sure.)

We jumped in the van and took another long drive out to a small mountain village known for its tiny church and llama empanadas. On the way there, we had to deal with bumpy roads once again, but this time we could see the beautiful countryside passing us by. We saw more fields of Coirons and passed by donkeys, sheep, herds of multi-colored llamas and brightly dressed Bolivian herders.

We stopped at one point and learned all about the healing powers of some of the herbs in the area. One massive, hard, green mound, called Llareta, was thought to cure diabetes, so that a 10 day treatment could replace a lifetime of insulin shots. We also learned about an herb called chachacama that cured altitude sickness.

We arrived at the small village, and I jumped out in search of llama empanadas Beth started feeling sick again. She stayed in the van counting to 100 in Spanish, trying to keep herself calm. I, on the other hand, was unable to find any llama empanadas, but settled on the cheese ones and had three. When I got back Beth still was feeling pretty bad. This time, the tour guide suggested the herb we had just learned about, chachacama. I went out and asked one of the tiny shops if they had any.

“Siiiiii,” the cook said with surprising enthusiasm.

He went out to a shed with a big ladel and emerged with some grimey looking water in a styrofoam cup. Slightly skeptical, I brought Beth the cup, and she gave it a look that said she felt the same way. But she gave it a shot anyway made a miraculous recovery not long after that.

We left the town and quickly arrived back in town in San Pedro. We jumped into bed and under the covers, and slept for a few hours. We emerged, booked our three day tour for Bolivia the next morning, and ran errands. That night we ate a good meal and toasted to Chili with Pisco Sours. It had been a good run. Though we were very excited to start our Bolivian adventure the next morning at the more reasonable and warm hour of 8am.

PS When we returned to our hostel, we, busted out our medical book to read about altitude sickness, curious about our guide’s response to Beth, and his insistence that we shouldn’t have eaten a “big dinner” the night before.

First we read that signs of severe altitude sickness include (one or more of the following…) vomiting. And that if (any one of the following symptoms) vomiting occurs you should begin an “IMMEDIATE DESCENT (all in caps) of at least 3,000 feet”, and that you should not “wait to see if the victim gets worse or improves… waiting could prove to be fatal.”

And second, the icing on the cake (as if that whole “fatal” thing wasn’t icing enough), the “Comprehensive Guide to Wilderness and Travel Medicine” states that when you are in high altitudes, you should “eat lots of carbohydrates.”