Winded

When I saw the pretty blonde girl sprawled on the floor of the customs area of the Bolivian airport, I should have realized that I might have a problem. She laid there, her head propped up with a rolled up sweatshirt, her knees pulled in closely to her chest. Her boyfriend, or at least that's who I assumed he was, looked a bit more dignified - he managed to maintain a seated position with his hiking boots pushed firmly into the floor and had the capabilities of actually filling out the various forms needed to officially enter in Bolivia.

These were the signs of classic altitude sickness. La Paz, the capital city of Bolivia, is at the highest elevation of any capital in the world. And for those not used to the thin air, the oxygen deprivation can have pretty extreme effects: loss of balance, splitting headaches, fainting, tingling in the extremeties, drowsiness, inability to sleep, lucid dreams, nausea.

But I thought I was too hearty of a traveler for all that. I had been to both Peru and Ecuador and the main side effects I experienced was a need to take it slower as a hiked up to even higher elevations. But I dutifully took the precautionary measures: I popped an altitude sickness pill, drank a week's worth of water in about 2 hours, consumed some cacao tea (a local remedy to help adjust to the altitude), and even took a nap between my plane landing and lunch.

So when the headache started mid-afternoon, I was caught a bit off guard. It began with a feeling like a mild head cold. And then I realized that I was having trouble following lunch conversation (granted I was eating lunch with three Americans who were deeply immersed in Bolivian politics and so even on my best days, I would have had trouble keeping track of the roster of names that came rolling off their tongues). By the time the food arrived, the dull fog in my brain became a searing headache - like something deep in the core of my mind was doubling in size by the second and was ready to bust out of my skull.

I closed my eyes, and my lunchmates noted that my color wasn't so good. When I got up to stand, I had to admit to myself - and others- that I felt awful. My friends walked me back to the apartment where I am staying. One of them - a tall, friend from college- gave me his arm to hold onto as we walked. And like the good friend he is, he sweetly massaged my damaged ego, by retelling all of his fainting stories.