Hiking to the Lost City, Dead on the road

The alarm goes and my heart sinks. I am not rested. I have a hangover. My fingers hurt. Did Rover survive?
Fall in to the shower and try to make myself human again. Fail miserably and instead stagger down to the trekking office to meet my fellow hikers, who by God are a chirpy bunch - English, Irish, Dutch, 2 Germans, an American, an Israeli and a Colombian man with his daughter. All bright and perky in their GoreTex and hiking boots. I am quiet obviously the only one who went anywhere remotely near a beer last night.

Two jeeps are there to take us to the trail head. One for people and one for the provisions. I make my excuses and head to the food truck to sleep on a sack of rice with some mango pillows. 2 hours later and we arrive. I am not sure if it is possible but I feel worse. Logic tells me it is scientifically called a hangover. But the other part of me is feeling the onset of rabies. Get a bottle of water, no adverse reaction. I feel confident for a while. Lunch is laid out and we are told to eat up as it is a tough 4 hour uphill hike. I eat a piece of cucumber.

2 hours later I do not care about rabies, I have forgotten I have a hangover. Rover is a distant memory. I am climbing a never ending steep incline which is covered in dust and have been doing so for the last hour. People get sweat patches when they exercise. My t-shirt had inversely a tiny dry patch in the center. The rest was so drenched that I could literally wring it out like it had been freshly immersed in water. Hiking in 35 degree heat and near 100% humidity is not for everyone. In fact it was not for me either, but at this stage I had no choice.

Head down and up we go. My ego wasn't helped by some local in a pair of rubber boots breezing by me and smiling just where I was convinced I was going to throw myself to the ground, cover myself with dust and get it all over with.

The body is an amazing thing and a couple of hours later my hangover was gone, probably left somewhere near the top of the last hill in a pool of water, my rabies was getting better and we are at our camp. "Camp" might be a bit grand, it was a long shack with a tin roof. Hammocks were slung and mosquito nets errected and the guides got cracking in the "kitchen". Meanwhile we headed down to a local waterfall which fell into a natural swimming pool. So in we jumped and washed the liters of sweat and grime from our bodies. Then I felt a nip, thought I imagined it at first but then came another one. My zoology ain´t that great but I was quite sure there are no piranhas in this part of Colombia. I felt another one and looked down to find a swarm of likkle tiny fishes who were munching on my dead skin. I am not having a good animal day. People pay good money for this treatment, but I was not having any Nemo munch on my toes so it was back to camp for some surprisingly good food. A couple of rounds of cards and it was off to bed. 9pm.

On my way to the "toilet" for a preslumber pee I put my hand on the wall to search for a light switch but instead connected with a medium sized slimy mass of jumpiness. I dropped my torch, but got the light on and saw the culprit kermit staring at me. He was quite colourful, so undoubtably poisonous. I bend down to pick up my torch and in the process scrape my head off a rusty nail in the wall. So there I stand in the middle of a Colombian rainforest poisoned by a frog and dying of simultaneous rabies and tetanus.

I go to bed and see if I wake up in the morning...