060713 - PUERTO VILLAROEL, BOL: A close to death experience on the road

After four hours in the bus we take a short stop along the road to grab some lunch. As we wanted to ask the bus driver not to forget about our stop for Puerto Villaroell he comes to as and tells us: this is where it is! We're like: What?!? Man, this is in the middle of nowhere. But he assures us to take a moto-taxi which gives us a lift to the next town. From there it shouldn't be to far to our destination. So we get our backpacks and stop the first mototaxi. A little bike powerd by a 250ccm engine. And steered by a kid who doesn't seem to be old enough to be allowed to drive on public roads legally. Not long later the next one stop. We hop on, with our backpacks. And the bikes gives a squizzy sound. I am afraid to fall off since we clearly overexceed the weight limit. But the driver steers super save to the car-taxi-stop in town. The next edgy moment is getting off the bike again. My backpack suddenly posesses a magical power to draw me to the ground - but I manage not to fall over. ;o)
To Puerto Villaroell it is a quick 20min sprint. Usually the taxi is cramped with 15 people, but maybe because of our backpacks we start of with only 5 "guests" and the driver who immediatly starts chasing after the taxi that took of about one minute before us. We reach him. Get closer. Start to pass him. Drive next to him for about 5min - as we see a group of three motorbikes on the road ahead of us. In the middle of the road they start to turn around. Quickly we come closer. The cab driver honks the horn. But doesn't slow down. Two bikes manage to turn. The third one is just about to do so. As we are only a few meters away. I close my eyes as I can see the head of the motorbike driver shattering the cab's front window. But in the last instance he stops the turing around process. The car next to us slams on the breaks and we fly right passed him. puh... that was pretty close.
Puerto Villaroell is a very laid back village and said to be one of Bolivias main ports. We don't want to stay long on town and check with the captain of the only cargo boat available. He tell's us that he would give us a lift for 120BOL and that we have to be back around 8am the next morning. We check into the Amazon Eco Hotel which seems to be the only half-decent place in town. Shortly after, while relaxing on the top floor of the recently built Tourist Information Building, we get to know two danish girls of whom one tells us that she got food poisoning from eating at the restaurant located on the second floor of the same building. BE AWARE: Do not eat here. We orded there some lunch the next day and it turned out to be some cold left-overs from the day before.

Well, to be coming back to the food poisoning story: As we buy-out the complete town of moskito repellent at the local store Janni (one of the girls) comes up to us, lays directly down on the floor, totally soaked in sweat and tells us, that she doesn't feel good. She hadn't been eating anything for a day and barely drunk a few sips. We tell her to get some soda into her system since she kinda needs the sugar it contents. So she buys one bottle as we keep on chatting with the store lady. Next thing we know she has emptied the whole bottle - and oh wonder: feels even worse now. Ulla (the other girl) comes along. Now we pull out some elektrolytes to better Janni's stomach. But we need water. So we all walk over to the next store in order to buy the elektrolytes and some water. All of the sudden Janni kinda collapses and lays down on the floor. Hamster and I hurry over to the docter who's located at the other end of the village. He tells us to bring Janni there. So we run back, put the two girls in a taxi and hope that everything turns out good. Meanwhile we stroll around the village. Later we meet the two girls and head out for dinner. So we are sitting at the table as Janni starts feeling very, very funny --- and starts vomiting. Well, I hurry over to the phamarcia as Hamster and Ulla, funnily, continue on eating. Puh... I guess they have a better stomach than I do. ;o) At the pharmacia they do not have the medicine that Carmen (the lovely woman at whose place we were eating) recommended. Cause Janni doesn't feel better, Carmen offers us to bring a friend that can take us to the hospital in the next town. Since we do not see another way to help Janni we take that offer and hurry over to the hospital. There Janni get's some really good treatment, but it took a while to convince her that everything there was sterile (the opened the sealed needle for fluids injection right before our eyes and she was still scared to get contaminated). Thing is, Janni never has been feeling that sick in her life before and unfortunatly it happens the first time in Bolivia. But finally they hospitalized her and kept her there over night. Ulla, Hamster and I, completly relieved and happy now, returned to Puerto Villaroell and celebrated this lucky outcome the rest of the night.
"I think we are not going!" Those were the first words of Hamster when he woke up the next morning. I knew this was serious since he had spend already more then 2 years in Central America and knows pretty well when his stomach is going crazy. In addition to that it started raining like crazy... so I turned around and continued on sleeping.The next two days we pretty much lazed around and hoped for improvement as the Hamster spend most of the days and nights running forth between the toilet and laying death-alike on the bed.