Not Dr O’Dempsey. Nice bloke though he is, he had an ulterior motive.

You see, since New York I noticed that a mosquito bite had been getting larger and sometimes painful. It was like a stabbing feeling in my back that would last up fifteen minutes. As time passed it would ooze a little blood, and the pain was getting sharper.

My first port of call was a local clinic (I no longer even bother trying to see a GP any more) where she poked around at it. This nurse however, is one of the sharper bunnies at this clinic and she did actually listen to my symptoms and take a good look. After I left she thought about it, rang the world renowned School of Tropical Medicine in Liverpool, and then asked me if I could go back later in the week. It might be a larvae that I had.

Cool! This would make a great anecdote!

Various checks were made, vaseline smeared on, and so on. But nothing popped out, and the doctor was left with just one course of action. Cut an X in my back and take a peek inside. Let me say now, that even with a little local anaesthetic, this still hurts quite a lot. Still, after a bit of poking about he found nothing, apologised and patched me up. He couldn’t dig as deep as he’d have liked to as there’s a risk of getting too close to the lungs, and so although there’s a possibility there’s something in there there’s not a lot, short of general anaesthetics and a surgeon, that can be done.

If something’s in there it’ll probably die now and my body will absorb it in due course. If there’s nothing there… well at least the pain’s stopped.

For information - the symptoms that made them think it might be a bug:

Pricking sensation at times.

Inflammation and a bump, but no real sign of infection such as pus.

Getting larger over time.

And I got the bite in the Amazon.

Anyway, now I have a nice X on my back to remind me of a great holiday ;o)

But you know, I’m feeling kind of lazy at the moment, so I’ll describe things in the way of a five year old. That might make for less typing:

The jungle was dead brill!!! There were big snakes and we caught piranhas except I didn’t coz I’m a vegetable and so don’t do fishing and we had bats and a python in the roof of the lodge. The toilets were dead stinky too and coz they don’t have proper plumbing like what we do in cities and everything the showers were cold which was horrible in the morning. I think I heard French people squealing about it. And there were these two nice English people and they were called James and Caroline and they gave me some of their wine and I got a bit tipsy!

I don’t like mosquitoes. They bit me. A lot. Little bastids. Oh sorry I’m not supposed to use words like that.

I was really really sad leaving South America. It’s so beautiful and nice and the people are great. I’ve got lots of new friends there and I think a little piece of my heart will always be with that continent, and with Peru most of all. I’ll be back.

Hmmmm… the five year old’s style is lapsing. Still…

As for New York City. What a place. It’s not really the assault on the senses that I expected. In fact it feels almost exactly how I expected it to, only quieter, cleaner and more polite. Shockingly expensive, however, but I stayed at the Chelsea Lodge in West 20th Street which was an almost but not quite reasonable $99 for a room with a shared loo but your own shower and basin. But it was very clean and charming, and it seems that for New York I did very well, so I shouldn’t complain. I did try to stay at the Second Home New York, as I stayed at Second Home Lima for my last couple of nights and thought it was brilliant. And relatively affordable. Oh well, maybe next time.

But it’s an interesting one about accomodation when travelling in a group. Essentially you need to settle for the lowest common denominator, or it’s unfair. Either that or the wealthier need to subsidise the poorer, but that’s not necessarily a feasible option given pride and so on. And there’s also the desire to stay in areas that may not be as attractive to you, but it’s important to cede to the group so long as everyone gets a say now and then. I thought we all worked beautifully as a group, but I’ll admit blowing $75 a night on a hotel room was a luxury I really enjoyed :o)

And it was still cheap compared to NY!

And then… it was home.

That’s it. The end of the trip. Done.

But don’t despair too much, I’m going to add a little content about some of the places I went to, with proper researched stuff and everything. But without the pressure of time it could take a while! Watch this space…. And photos will be added soon.

These samples tend to come in small glass vials.

And in a rucksack, small glass vials aren’t so clever. They were safely inside my washbag, but sadly I didn’t notice they’d broken and several pieces fell out onto the bathroom floor. Eventually they found my foot. I just thought I’d stood on a stone.

Now, people have questioned my bringing a first aid kit, but it was damn handy for cleaning up the wound and disinfecting, so once the blood was stopped there was no further pain or infection.

Other blood letting, caused today, was when I patted a tree to say something about trees. I never knew palm trees sometimes came with sharp spines. I thought I’d slapped some fire ants or something, but no… it was the damn tree. Gonna be more careful what I pat from now on.

This is probably my last post until at least Sunday night, so don’t worry about the silence!

Oh, and in just a week’s time I’ll be in New York for a very different, and much colder, experience. Then a week Monday I get home. And I’ll be about ready I reckon….