Canyons, Mountains & Vineyards

[craven morehead]

And a few more:

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Just spectacular !!

 

[craven morehead]

Next day back in Cusco and +1 is not feeling any better so we ring the Doctor who asks us to come to the clinic. Following some blood tests, X'rays, and a thorough examination, she is given a diagnosis: acute bronchitis and acute asthma, and the altitude is not helping.

So she was admitted and has now been in the Clinic for three nights with IV antibiotics, puffers, drips, and lots of other things.

We had planned to go to Puno yesterday, then Copacabana and La Paz, but I have cancelled that part of our trip. From here we will be heading to sea level for her to rest and recover.

Terrible luck ....... hopefully a speedy recovery.

 

[amaroo]

Just caught up. Very sorry to hear the sad news - best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Great photos of MP - some lovely memories there.

Safe travels!

 

[Jacques Vert]

An update:

We had some communication problems whereby the clinic was saying that they had sent reports to our travel insurance company and the company was not receiving them; same in the other direction. So I got the clinic to give me a copy of all reports, etc and photographed them on +1's camera and emailed them myself and all approvals quickly followed. Long story short: after 4 nights in the clinic in Cusco we headed for the airport in an ambulance, flew to Lima accompanied by a Doctor and oxygen bottle, picked up by another ambulance and +1 is now in a clinic in Lima.

More X'rays and blood tests and the Doctor here states she has pneumonia. Good news is that she was feeling quite a bit better today, even before we left Cusco. She will probably spend a couple of days in the clinic to rest and recover before we continue on our travels.

As it happened, our flight from CUZ to LIM was with Avianca, a first for both of us. I am a member of a number of Star Alliance airlines (including Avianca) so now I have to decide who to credit the flight to.....first world problems.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and wishes for her recovery, many of which are from people we have never met.

And just because this is a frequent flyer community, here"s a couple of shots from the flight:

 

[Fifa]

So pleased that @Gem56 arrived in Lima safely and is now on the road to recovery!
I'm disappointed that you all weren't accommodated in J on the flight!

Certainly an entertaining story to tell at future dinner parties.

 

[Jacques Vert]

So pleased that @Gem56 arrived in Lima safely and is now on the road to recovery!
I'm disappointed that you all weren't accommodated in J on the flight!

Not as disappointed as we were; especially since the clinic charged the insurance company about three times the going rate for our tickets,

Certainly an entertaining story to tell at future dinner parties.

I'm sure I will be able to "enhance" it and make it sound even better.

 

[love_the_life]

......
I'm sure I will be able to "enhance" it and make it sound even better.

But will Gem play along with that? I don't think you could enhance it actually. It sounds like a very worrying time (and not to mention sick) time had by all.
Pleased to hear you are feeling better Gem. Hope the road to recovery continues smoothly.

 

[Jacques Vert]

But will Gem play along with that? I don't think you could enhance it actually. It sounds like a very worrying time (and not to mention sick) time had by all.
Pleased to hear you are feeling better Gem. Hope the road to recovery continues smoothly.

Maybe I'll just substitute a Lear Jet instead of Avianca Y

 

[Jacques Vert]

Two more nights in hospital in Lima before @Gem56 is discharged. Forgot to post some photos of the hospital room in Cusco: about three times the size of our room at the Esplendor and the view was great, especially at night...







Interesting thing about the hospitals is that they seemed quite concerned about the amount of food that +1 was eating. Having spent 4 nights at the hospital myself I can assure you that it had nothing to do with her appetite, I couldn't eat the stuff either! I'll never complain about hospital food in Australia again.

And for a country that has over 3,000 varieties of potatoes, I can't believe the amount of rice these guys eat. Actually I like rice but I'm over it.

So after 6 nights in hospital on IV antibioticos and inedible food, I decided that +1 deserved something a wee bit nicer, with a decent bed, a nice pillow, warm room and some decent food. So I booked into the J W Marriott, very nice, and on a Saturday night it is considerably cheaper than other nights of the week, at least on the Senior discount rate. Just as I was about to book our room I notice that an Executive room was only $US34 more than the basic room and came with lounge access including breakfast, light lunch, happy hour and light dinner (for both of us).

J W Marriott, Lima:

Our room...






The Lounge...

 

[Jacques Vert]

The view from the lounge:






We got chatting to the two ladies running the lounge. They asked how long we had been in Peru, where we had been etc. They were disappointed to hear of +1's experience and returned with some gifts to cheer her up. Nice touch...

 

[Jacques Vert]

The lobby and bar area.

The view...





Inside...









Excellente...

 

[love_the_life]

The lobby and bar area.

The view...

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Inside...

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Excellente...

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That’s where we stayed IIRC. Nice hotel.
Hope Gem is much improved.

 

[Fifa]

What a lovely hotel to assist with recuperation!
(and as a bonus I imagine you will be able to make Marriott Gold )

 

[VPS]

Hope gem is recovering and I'm sure that hotel will help.

Did they let you stay in the hospital with her?

 

[Jacques Vert]

Hope gem is recovering and I'm sure that hotel will help.

Did they let you stay in the hospital with her?

Unfortunately they did. Was nice to be there for her but it meant I had to eat their horrible food and sleep on a couch in Lima (only managed one night on that).

Would you believe on discharge they tried to give us a syringe and antibiotics in liquid form? Did they really think I was going to inject them straight into her? Surely not. @Gem56 insisted on tablets. The lady handing out the drugs didn't speak a word of English and just kept saying dos, dos, dos. What would we have done without Google Translate? I know dos means two, but two what? How often? When? With food or without? What about the rest of the stuff in the bag?

 

[Jacques Vert]

(and as a bonus I imagine you will be able to make Marriott Gold )

Not quite, I think I will be one night short but I have until the end of the month.

Edit: Make that 2 nights short

 

[Jacques Vert]

Travel Insurance lady rang today and suggested they fly us home. While I am sure that will limit their potential losses, +1 didn't want to risk going back into hospital if she started to go downhill again.

At least we made it to Machu Picchu which was the initial reason for coming to Peru.

So no Bolivia for us and despite our third transit through SCL we will still not have set foot outside the airport.

Oh well, maybe next time.................................................

 

[Fifa]

Would you believe on discharge they tried to give us a syringe and antibiotics in liquid form? Did they really think I was going to inject them straight into her? Surely not.

Some years ago my son was on a six week trip with his mates in South America.
In Columbia one of the guys got an infection in his leg and my son was taught how to give him his antibiotics via injection (once a day for a week) .

 

[JohnM]

Bad luck, but Bolivia has a lot of much higher altitude territory than Peru which could have been problematic.

It sounds like you have a good travel insurance company. Would you care to share which it is?

 

[Jacques Vert]

Bad luck, but Bolivia has a lot of much higher altitude territory than Peru which could have been problematic.

It sounds like you have a good travel insurance company. Would you care to share which it is?

QBE via Qantas Assure; Annual multi-trip policy. $675 for the two of us for 12 months. Maximum days per trip = 60.

Dare I say we have got our monies worth on this one. The quote to fly us and the Doctor from Cusco to Lima was $US2,218.40 I hate to think what the hospital and doctors' bills are.