Why is it that the moment you start to relax when travelling, and think that things can’t go wrong they always do? And recently things have gone wrong in a pretty big way, surpassing all past travel upsets including the time a particularly favourite straw hat went missing and even the time a flight was nearly missed because a friend’s passport got jammed in a photocopier.
This blog entry was meant to be about our amazing journey from Peru’s mysterious Nazca lines to its bustling capital Lima. We’d already planned to tell you about taking the flight over the ancient markings in the desert, and when Anna, petrified of flying, asked the pilot how long he had been doing his job and he replied 30 minutes. It was only later we found out he was confused with the journey time and had actually been flying for 15 years. We were also going to mention German fruit loop Eric Von Dannekin who thought the mystery markings were created by aliens - definitely a few cabbages short of a decent sauerkraut.
However it wasn’t long after the Nazca Lines that our adventure became less Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark, and more Indiana Jones and the Missing Body Part. To tell you about our trials and tribulations, which by the way involve blood and gore, an operation, and plenty of bodily fluids, we’re going to tell you in two halves, giving you both perspectives. So here we go…
LUKE
Things started to go wrong shortly after a very drunken visit to an illegal gay party. We had said goodbye to the group of friends we had been travelling with by drinking until 6am and dancing to what seemed like the world’s biggest record collection of cheesy Latino music.
It was the next day when Anna still had excruciating stomach pains, that I thought something might be wrong. When she didn’t enjoy the stack of hangover-busting junk food I bought her for lunch I knew something was very wrong.
The trouble was it was Sunday and despite my best efforts to call a doctor, every one I tried had turned their phone off. As the pains got worse I realised this was something that couldn’t wait for the start of the working week. After an interesting display of miming, belly rubbing and face pulling at the hotel receptionist, who I thought only spoke Spanish, she made a call which sounded promising, before saying in perfect English: “A doctor will be here shortly Mr Hollands.”
The relief was short lived. I was about to tell the receptionist to call an ambulance when the wheezing, doddery old bloke who I thought was about to die in the hotel lobby stopped me and introduced himself as the much anticipated doctor we had been waiting for. I say he introduced himself, he kind of did, the fact he couldn‘t speak English didn‘t really help. Also he literally looked like he’d just stumbled off the set of Dad’s Army. As I led him upstairs to poor bed ridden Anna I half expected him to tell me we were doomed - in Spanish of course. His examination lasted all of 10 seconds, in fact it took him longer to write the prescription and a $60 bill for his services.
Things worsened when he left. Anna confessed his examination, which had involved a quick prod and poke of her stomach, had been excruciating. After some quick advice from my Mum, a nurse, we decided casualty was the best place for Anna, who had all the symptoms of acute appendicitis.
The next problem of course was where to go. After a brief look at the guide book I picked a random hospitable and lied to Anna that it said it was the best in the country, to try and make her less nervous.
When we jumped in a cab it turned out I had picked the only hospital the cabbie hadn’t heard of. This certainly made for an interesting journey which involved me shouting a lot, the driver stopping for directions and Anna being sick in a carrier bag.
If someone had had a camera to capture the moment we eventually burst through the hospital doors the shot would have been priceless. Under one arm I was carrying a screaming Anna and under the other hung bags of sick, I kicked the hospital door open and ran in shouting, “very infimra, very infirma!” The receptionist, staring at me open mouthed, called for a doctor and within seconds Anna was drugged up and in bed being taken care of. It looked like the hospital was going to be a good one after all. In fact I later found out it probably was the best hospital in Peru, and was run by an American company and employed American trained staff. We also had one of the best doctors in Peru looking after us, a cheery guy called Dr Castro who spoke brilliant English and had a wicked sense of humour.
It took three days of tests and immense worrying before we found out the reason for the pain. After three days of sitting by Anna’s bedside not sleeping and wearing the same clothes I had taken a cab back to our hotel for a wash and brush up. I returned to find Dr Castro telling Anna he was going to rush her into surgery with suspected appendicitis.
That afternoon was probably one of the most worried I have spent in my life, if they had served booze at the hospital canteen I probably would have ordered a stiff drink. Was she going to be ok? Was surgery safe in Peru? And what about Castro? He had talked to me about his penchant for the throat-burning Peruvian tipple Pisco and I had noticed earlier that day his hands were more than a bit shaky. I half hoped he’d had a stiff drink to steady them up.
I think the amount of cups of coffee I drank while Anna was in surgery probably reached double figures, and the operation only took an hour. But it was something to take my mind off things.
When the smiling Dr Castro finally emerged from the operating theatre in his surgical scrubs he told me the operation had been a big success and Anna was just recovering. After a round of phone calls to family back home I breathed a big sigh of relief.
The next few days were spent in hospital recovering. Dr Castro came round each morning to see how things were going. The day after the operation he said he had had dinner with his good English friend the Anglican Bishop of Peru who told him he would pray for Anna’s speedy recovery. It must have done the trick, either that or the copious amounts of antibiotics they were pumping into her, because soon after that she was discharged.
It was then I nearly said a little prayer myself, which would have been something along the lines of thank God for travel insurance. If we had wondered why the hospital was so clean, the equipment so new and the staff so efficient we found the answer on the bill for the medical fees - there were 10,000 reasons why the hospital was so good, and each one had the queens head on it, yep 10k in pounds sterling. Thank God for the NHS too. Our hospitals might not be as clean and efficient as that Peruvian wonder hospital but at that price virtually no one in Peru could afford to pay, apart from tourists, foreign workers and the richest of the rich. Dr Castro told us there was some state health provision but that it was terrible and hardly accessible. If a poor Peruvian came to a private hospital for treatment they would be booted out. In very rare circumstance, ie if they were seconds from death, they would be allowed in for brief treatment, and then would be kicked out as soon as possible.
We had plenty of time to ponder that sobering thought as we spent two weeks eating room service and watching bad TV in a hotel while Anna recovered. We also had time to ponder our next destination. I’m not sure whether it was our desire to have some strong booze, fried food or dancing, but Mexico seemed to tick all the boxes. And so we decided to set off for the land of Speedy Gonzales and big hats.

ANNA
By the time we reached Lima the stabbing pains in my stomach which had been building up for the last month were getting hard to ignore, as were the frequent loo trips for which even the strongest immodium was no match.
It was time to stop blaming Peruvian vodka (of which there was plenty) the dodgy soup fed to us by our native families when we had visited Lake Titicaca (again, sadly there was plenty) or the nerves from flying over the Nazca lines in something akin to a paper aeroplane. It was time to call the doctor.
So out he came to give me a thorough check over and diagnose the Peruvian parasite which I had already nicknamed Frank in anticipation of his discovery. Actually no such testing occurred, all I got was an extremely painful prod in the stomach and a prescription of antibiotics, which I accepted suspiciously. As soon as the doctor was out the door I did what every good journalist would do and wikipediad the pills he had prescribed, only to read “to be used as a last resort in life threatening illnesses.” No gracias.
It was time to take matters into my own hands. Some of the pains felt suspiciously hunger like and I decided that the discomfort could well be a result of my stomach eating itself (just call me doctor Stephens). Luke was dispatched to get me a Bembos (A Peruvian McDonalds) which I swallowed in three bites. Suffice to say I think that will be my last ever Bembos, it stayed in my stomach about as long as it took me to eat it.
By that evening I had taken a serious turn for the worse, and not wanting to disturb my mum from a Tina Turner gig at the O2 we got Luke’s mum, a nurse, on the phone for a free consultation direct from Medway NHS. What a service.
Possible appendicitis was the diagnosis and so I was bundled in a cab and taken to hospital. The only slight hitch was that no one knew where the hospital was. Imagine the scene in a film where someone’s about to have a baby in the back of the car and you’ll have the right idea. I was screaming at the man to go faster and Luke was handing out cash in exchange for “more rapido hombre” and the poor flustered cabbie had to stop every two minutes for directions from people who kept pointing us back the way we’d come.
Fortunately there was no seven hour wait in A & E when Luke finally stumbled up the hospital steps with me under one arm and a bag containing my recently ejected lunch in the other. I was rushed into a room and hooked up to an intravenous drip within seconds of our arrival.
I had three nurses to hold back my hair while I was throwing up, another to take my temperature, blood pressure and pulse and to start pumping me full of antibiotics. Within an hour I’d been given a full tomography (akin to a CT scan) had my blood tested and been given an ultrasound. The diagnosis: acute gastroenteritis. The severe pain: gas! I was mortified, could I really have ended up in hospital with wind?
My embarrassment intensified when the doctor arrived. The shock of being pumped full of drugs and anti nausea medication had stopped me from throwing up and going to the toilet, my blood test had come back normal. I was showing no outward symptoms even though I felt like there were sledge hammer wielding monsters in my stomach. The doctor looked at me kindly and said “do you normally feel pain quite easily?” Well I hadn’t thought so until now thank you very much! A quick ‘help me’ glance at Luke ensured a similarly negative response. Clearly disbelieving me but being too nice to say so the doctor said I should stay for the night because I was very dehydrated.
Ensuite bathroom, my own TV, a little cot for Luke to sleep in, it was all pretty luxury for a hospital in a third world country. No mud huts and dirty knives here.
The next day I’d taken a turn for the worse, the blood test was worse, the scans were worse. I was injected with more solution and given another tomography, my second in 12 hours. According to a reliable source you could wait days for one on the NHS.
Unfortunately there was still no diagnosis. The doctor did finally believe there was something wrong though. I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased about that or not but I decided on the latter, I was in agony and demanding pain medication as often as they’d give it to me.
The third day dawned and the doctor and Luke both looked worried. It was time to call the specialist. I was wheeled down to theatre at three o’clock in the afternoon, only one hour after the specialist and the doctor decided they needed to operate on my appendix.
I asked the doctor before we went into theatre how many appendixes he’d taken out and he said “well this is my first one so I really hope you survive!” Couldn’t you sue for something like that in England?! Fortunately just before I headed off to sleep he whispered that he’d done more than 3,000 operations, it gave me more peaceful dreams.
The next couple of hours were undoubtably more stressful for Luke, and for my family at home wondering why I wasn’t out of theatre yet, than they were for me. My only memory of the rest of the day is waking up in the lift on the way back to my room. I asked Luke whether I still had all my organs and he shook his head.
Although it was his 3,000 operation I felt rather proud to be the first case Dr Castro had seen of its kind, my appendix had managed to grow into my bowel, and had been infected for so long that it was all the way up to my ribcage. Must be something in the Peruvian water!
I took an immediate turn for the better once the offending item was removed, and Luke, bless him, finally got some sleep. I was let out a week later as good as new.
I cannot praise highly enough the fantastic nurses who showered me, changed my sheets and scubbed my room to within an inch of its life, sometimes more than once a day. The technology in the hospital was state-of-the-art and offered out freely, and the doctors were highly trained professionals. The bill – a neat £10,000. Fortunately I had travel insurance which covered the lot.
Would I have rather been treated there than on the NHS? Yes, probably. But when we drove home past the Peruvian general hospital which had broken windows, grimy hallways, and hundreds of people waiting to be seen I thought how lucky we are to have good free healthcare for those not lucky enough to get an insurance windfall.
So I’m fully recovered now and ready for the next leg of our trip in Mexico....think my stomach’s strong enough for some tequila by now....