Image used under Creative Commons, via Wikimedia Commons – in the public domain

As promised, here is the sorry tale of my attempts to survive my forthcoming trip in search of Paddington Bear. Firstly, I should point out that a trip to Peru has long been on my bucket list. I blame those distant days of standing on a table in the school drama studio declaiming Atahuallpa’s lines from Shaffer’s Royal Hunt of the Sun. There was also an inflatable green rabbit involved in this performance somewhere but that’s another story. Regardless, Peru was a destination of choice. Not so for my hapless travelling companion but he somehow got bludgeoned into the plans. Then our intrepid Australian friends got in on the act and we agreed to meet them there to share the trip.

This trip involved heights, considerable heights. I had already run the gamut of the travel insurance, a feat in itself and paid heavily to ensure that I would be recovered regardless of how many metres above sea level I was. The received wisdom was that we needed medication to ward off the likelihood of altitude sickness. Several weeks ago we set off in pursuit of the recommended drugs. It didn’t seem to warrant taking up an appointment with our hard-pressed GPs so we began by telephoning the surgery. ‘Put your request in writing.’ That was the easy bit. A few days later, the receptionist calls. ‘You will need a telephone appointment with your GP.’ She offers a date ten days hence. ‘Oh and make an appointment with the travel nurse.’ At this point I should say that my travelling companion received his medication after the telephone call. We are of an age to qualify for free medication but this counts as a private prescription so he needed to part with money but no suggestions of travel nurses for him. To be fair, I am glad my GP is cautious but each appointment was a few more days down the line and what started as being ‘in plenty of time’, was now less so.

I arrive for my appointment armed with a not very detailed map of where we are scheduled to go. I had already read the NHS advice, which mentions Hepatitis A (tick – had that to go to Russia), rabies, yellow fever and the altitude thing. So first rabies.
‘I promise not to go close to any animals that are foaming at the mouth.’
‘Ah,’ replies the nurse ‘but they may go close to you.’ It seems that, as long as I am within 24 hours of a hospital I will be fine(ish), so rabies is not needed.

Yellow fever is up for debate. There is conflicting advice as to whether where we are going is risky. The doctor is of the opinion that I should have the vaccination anyway. Forewarned is forearmed or some such.
Nurse: ‘You are on the borderline of the yellow fever area on this trip.’
Me: ‘Ok but there’s a vaccination.’
Nurse: ‘We caution people over sixty against having the injection.’
Me: *smiles winningly* ‘I am barely over sixty.’
Nurse: ‘It is a live vaccine, there are side effects.’
Me: (thinking, ok so I get a bit of a temperature) ‘What are they?’
Nurse: nonchalantly ‘Paralysis, inflammation of the brain and death.’
We resolve to forget the Yellow Fever vaccine.

Cue doctor to discuss the advisability of altitude with my slight heart issues
‘It is like everyone else is going at 50 in the slow lane of the motorway but for you it is 90 in the fast lane.’
Arggghhhh. I don’t even drive on motorways, not in any lane, not at any speed, well once by accident but no. I have to confess that I have spent the past few weeks seriously weighing up whether to abandon the whole thing. I have so many exciting things lined up for later in the year, should I be content with those? Oh and erm, well, staying alive a bit longer would be good. Next minute, I’d be chiding myself for being such a woose. Thousands of people do this trip and survive. Ok, most of them are twenty-somethings on gap years but hey. What happened to my ‘grasp every opportunity’ philosophy? I rather think it has been subsumed by my risk adverse gene.

An appointment with a private travel clinic is advised. A 90 mile round trip and the best part of a day is involved but as yet, I have no medication, as my GP feels he lacks the necessary information to prescribe. It turns out that the nurse I am scheduled to meet is local, he knows people I know and more to the point, numerous people of my travelling companion’s acquaintance. While all the ‘Do you know x, y and z?’ chit chat is going on, I am looking at the eclectic range of books on the mantlepiece. An ancient tome A History of the British Nation, probably left behind by the previous occupants of the office, think I. I am somewhat disconcerted by the presence of The Fatal Shore, a excellent book, I have a copy but I hope it is not prophetic. Eventually we get to the purpose of my visit. To be fair, I am now as reassured as I am ever likely to be (not very). No need for Yellow Fever, hurrah, one risk down. I am prepared to ‘feel like I am having a heart attack.’ Immediately, my mind is thinking, ‘But what if I AM having a heart attack?’ As for, ‘You will probably stop breathing at night’, slightly more scary. I have my prescription, which cost five times that of my travelling companion (not allowing for the petrol and parking to visit the clinic). Now to try to look forward positively to what everyone assures me will be a trip of a lifetime. I just need it not to be THE trip of a lifetime.

I will be blogging the adventure, should I survive, so stand by!

And in the next installment, exciting writing news.