We made it!

We made it!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Day 6 Sultans Bathery – Forced Rest Day

Today we had planned to walk from Putuppady to Kalpetta but after the massive day’s walking yesterday and the condition and steepness of the road we decided to drive on to Sultans Bathery and have a rest day. Actually the road from Putuppady to Kaplpetta was indeed unwalkable and despite Popsy’s concern about the integrity of the walk I assure him that it will be fine. Both Maggie and I have awoken with the first hint of Delhi Belly and Indy whilst recovered well from her big walk yesterday would benefit from a day off. We will tomorrow head back to Kalpetta and walk to Sultans Bathery to pick up our walk route.

This morning we farewelled Antony as he had found a ride back to Bangalore. We had a lovely drive from Kalpetta to Sultans Bathery and located our accommodation at the Orchid Resort – don’t get too excited, I think all places in India are referred to as resorts. The pluses are that we have a shared double room suite and there is some space for Gus to play. The resort is named as an eco resort which I am not completely sure what that means other than the fact that the scenery around the resort is quite beautiful. We are a little way off the main road and there is a small river running along the resort and we are surrounded by rich green vegetation. Unfortunately the pool is the same colour as the vegetation so no swimming here again for the kids. It seems that pools in India are more for decoration than use as we haven’t found one yet that even slightly resembled the colour blue.

I declined lunch today trying to settle down my stomach. I settled Gus down for a sleep as the rest of the crew went for lunch. Lunch was apparently quite calamitous as Mum wore a plate of vegetable curry which didn’t make it off the tray to the table. As you can imagine the waiter was mortified as Mum returned to the room to change looking like she had lost her lunch down her top. Whilst at lunch one of the boys who works at the resort was being carried back after apparently sustaining a fall, bandaged up and looking the worse for wear. Nurse Ratchett quickly surveyed the treatment apparently received from the hospital and was not impressed.

This afternoon I got a quick minute to check emails and we received the number to call Eibhlin and Nicola who have arrived safely. As Bec talks on the phone to Nicola Gus is hunting lizards who were running up and down a large tree. They were disappearing down a fist sized hole at the base of a tree which resembled the look of a snake hole so we encouraged Gus to leave it alone. The young Steve Irwin wasn’t impressed with that advice. Given that we walked past two dead poisonous snakes on our walk yesterday we are a little more conscious of the present dangers.

Bec heads back to the room to play with her camera and Gus and I spend a few more minutes surveying the tree. The boys who work at the hotel come out and say hi and Gus is very excited to be holding court as they hang off his every word. He has five boys all in raptures as he explains everything from lizard catching to goat herding and anything else he could think to cover. Never one to miss an opportunity Gus decides to take the boys on a walk and heads back towards the room. He runs inside and grabs his cricket bat and the game was on. Gus batting and four Indian fieldsman very dedicated to the game. Gus was in his element, ordering the field around and taking his turn batting and bowling, whatever he felt like. The directions coming from the boys about the game were quickly dismissed as Gus took charge. Bec, camera in hand was very excited and grabbed some beautiful photos of the very natural way Gus interacts with the boys.

After a while I decide to leave Gus to the boys and head back to see Bec turning a very pale shade of white. Whilst trying to delete one photo from her camera she accidentally deleted all but two of the photos. Every day of our trip and every moment that she had painstakingly captured were gone. Panic started and despite my best efforts to undo her work it was too late. Just when all hope seemed lost we remembered the memory stick and quickly took it out and put it in the laptop to check what was there. Relief followed as the colour returned to Bec’s cheeks as we could see all the photos saved on a folder and quickly moved to make several backups, a good lesson to learn early on in our trip.

As the hours passed Maggie and I went slowly downhill and the stomach cramps and pains escalated. Nurse Ratchett was in her element dispensing drugs and treatments left right and centre. It became quickly apparent to me that this was not going to be an easy night and after several hours of rest and trying to recover I was in the bathroom quite violently ill. It is in that moment that you are at your lowest, physically very ill, worried about your daughter, and definitely asking yourself the question about is this really what we signed up for. In between episodes in the bathroom I apologised profusely to Bec for what she was going through and in usual Bec style she simply said, ‘today is a dark day, tomorrow will be better’. Inside I knew she was right but I didn’t feel that way at the time.

Fortunately Maggie did not follow suit and she managed to hold down her antibiotic and recover quite quickly. After a couple of very eventful trips to the bathroom I managed to get some sleep and hoping all would be well in the morning.

1 comment:

  1. Wow - 30 k is a lot of walking and hard work! What an achievement. Loving your blog - thanks so much for sharing your adventure

    ReplyDelete