Travel in an of itself can be full of pitfalls and travails, but that is part of the learning experience of it all. Once something happens you learn to roll with the events and try to remember not to have whatever it is happen again. On my recent trip to Ecuador I had just such an experience. Having been to a number of places over the years I like to feel I've become an "experience traveller" as they say but on this particular occasion I basically fall down go boom as the toddlers say. After the fact everyone said I should come up with a weird interesting story about how it happened and make sure to include bar fights, llamas and machetes in the story but in the end I think I'll just stick with what really happened even if it is not that exciting.
We pulled into Papallacta, a small town nestled in the Andes, and when I say small I mean a spit on the map kind of small, unpaved winding road around the mountain kind of place. The place is known for it's hot springs being that it is located around the base of the volcano called Antisana. Even though it's become a bit of a tourist stop for the springs they haven't really taken advantage of that but have remained small and unassuming.
We stayed at a lovely place called Termas de Papallacta. It was actually a cool place with small cabins scattered across on the compound and the hot springs located literally just steps outside your door as you can see from the picture above. Since I knew beforehand we would be there I had packed a bathing suit and so even though there was a bit of misty rain falling several of us in the group decided to hit the hot water. I found myself sitting in water flowing fresh from the spring at about 100 or so degrees talking to a 40 something Russian couple from New York--she of the ginormous boobs he of the recently begun hair transplant--and a retired couple from Texas--he reminded me of Wilfred Brimley and she looked exactly like a larger version of Paula Deen--but lovely people.
Parts of our group came and went and conversations varied from previous travels to where is next to what exactly one does for a living and so on. And the whole time I sat in the hot soothing water close to where the water comes directly out of the spring--it was great. Eventually they made the call for dinner and I did feel a little hungry, especially since I realized it had been awhile since I had eaten and I had actually been in the spring for 90 minutes or so. I figured it was time to go so I slowly got and out and reached for my towel when I felt a little dizzy. I stopped in mid--motion and was like whoa...it did pass so I finished drying off and headed back to my cabin. About halfway there I started to get dizzy again and thought oh...I will just sit right here on this chair till it passes again. I reached my hand for the chair and well, that's kind of the last thing I remember, besides everything going black. The next sensation I could latch onto was our tour guide poking me in the should saying "John? John? Are you okay?" (John is not my name and the tour guide still claims he didn't call me that but I have witnesses because the next day some of the other people in the group started calling me John!) Vaguely I got the sensation of coming back to consciousness from what felt like a long time but in reality was only about a minute or two. Seems several folks had heard a loud thud and came around to see what was up. Turns out that upon reaching the chair and then passing out I fell forward and hit the side of my face on one of the poles holding up the porch on the cabin before doing a face plant onto the sidewalk. In the process I scraped off a layers] of skin on the right side of of my face on my forehead and near my eye and also sprained my neck due to the angle I hit the pole at--see the lovely picture below.
They managed to roll me over and you could seem steam just coming off my entire body. Someone ran to get me a gatorade to refresh my electrolytes as I could not sit up without getting dizzy. After getting some down I was able to pull myself together and get back to the cabin and about 15 minutes later I felt better. Termas also had a doctor of all things onsite and he was able to check out my wounds and clean and salve them for which I was very grateful. Seems you are not supposed to stay in the pools for more than 20 minutes at a time and you are supposed to hydrate in addition and possibly eat because the resort is at an elevation of just over 10,000 feet and all those factors together contributed to my blackout. Thus another lesson learned when traveling. I still have the scars and they will take some time to heal but hey it could have been a lot worse.
Answer to previous posts trivia question: Dr. Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1984
This posts trivia question: what is the worlds largest hot spring?
We pulled into Papallacta, a small town nestled in the Andes, and when I say small I mean a spit on the map kind of small, unpaved winding road around the mountain kind of place. The place is known for it's hot springs being that it is located around the base of the volcano called Antisana. Even though it's become a bit of a tourist stop for the springs they haven't really taken advantage of that but have remained small and unassuming.
Parts of our group came and went and conversations varied from previous travels to where is next to what exactly one does for a living and so on. And the whole time I sat in the hot soothing water close to where the water comes directly out of the spring--it was great. Eventually they made the call for dinner and I did feel a little hungry, especially since I realized it had been awhile since I had eaten and I had actually been in the spring for 90 minutes or so. I figured it was time to go so I slowly got and out and reached for my towel when I felt a little dizzy. I stopped in mid--motion and was like whoa...it did pass so I finished drying off and headed back to my cabin. About halfway there I started to get dizzy again and thought oh...I will just sit right here on this chair till it passes again. I reached my hand for the chair and well, that's kind of the last thing I remember, besides everything going black. The next sensation I could latch onto was our tour guide poking me in the should saying "John? John? Are you okay?" (John is not my name and the tour guide still claims he didn't call me that but I have witnesses because the next day some of the other people in the group started calling me John!) Vaguely I got the sensation of coming back to consciousness from what felt like a long time but in reality was only about a minute or two. Seems several folks had heard a loud thud and came around to see what was up. Turns out that upon reaching the chair and then passing out I fell forward and hit the side of my face on one of the poles holding up the porch on the cabin before doing a face plant onto the sidewalk. In the process I scraped off a layers] of skin on the right side of of my face on my forehead and near my eye and also sprained my neck due to the angle I hit the pole at--see the lovely picture below.
Answer to previous posts trivia question: Dr. Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1984
This posts trivia question: what is the worlds largest hot spring?
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