Editors note: Travel
is awesome. But, on an extended trip there will always be a day or two here and
there where you would gladly take back your seat in a cubicle in exchange for a normally
functioning stomach. We've had a couple of those this week.
It’s been a bit of a rough start to the Bali leg of the
trip. We had been warned not to
stay in Kuta by pretty much everyone we spoke to, but unfortunately it seems to
be the only appropriate spot for beginners to take up surfing on the island.
Given that, our plan was to spend a couple nights in Kuta, get the basics of
surfing down, and hopefully by then have figured out a quieter (and cleaner)
beach that we could base ourselves at and continue to try to pick up surfing.
Well, 6 nights later, we are still here.
The first day went as planned – arrived, checked into the
nice, relatively quiet hotel we had booked online, found a surf shop and booked
a lesson for the next day. After the red-eye from India, there wasn’t much more
on our list to get done other than sleep.
Our surf lesson the next morning was good – great
instructor, both standing up on waves, having fun. But man, it was tiring. I
found myself out of breath, tired, light headed, but enjoying it. We dropped the boards off after the lesson,
had a quick bite to eat, and then carried our bags halfway across town to the
cheaper hotel we found. I thought the walk was going to kill me. Hot. Humid.
And I was really lagging.
Got to the hotel. Checked in. Spent the afternoon in bed.
Around 4pm, after more trips to the bathroom than I can
count, and realizing that I was running a really high fever, I went to the
medical clinic down the street (I will leave out the frustrating part about the
clinics approach to pricing – suffice to say that I bought the medications the
clinic tried to sell me at a pharmacy down the street for a 1/100th
the price).
101 fever, bacterial infection in the stomach, and a
parasite in there to boot. Sweet.
Thankfully the meds kicked in pretty quickly, so only had to
spend most of the next day (day 3) in bed before starting to feel human again. Carrie
was a saint, and brought in meals (plain rice and a banana) from the restaurant
down the street for me. I managed to muster the energy to walk to the beach to
watch Carrie take another surf lesson just before sunset.
We both surfed again on Day 4. Rented a scooter in the
afternoon and battled Kuta traffic for a couple hours trying to get the lay of
the land.
Got home that night, and Carrie was starting to come down
with a fever. The next day (Day 5), she was in bed all day. My turn to fetch
the meals from the restaurant down the street.
We wake up on Day 6, Carrie’s fever seems to be subsided,
I’m feeling almost 100%, we both decide to go out for a morning surf. All’s
going well until Carrie tries to catch a wave, does a nose dive, and comes out
of the water grimacing. Big cut on her thigh, presumably from the fin of the
board.
3 stitches, iodine, antibiotics, and doctors orders not to
swim for the next week later we are really, really ready to be done with Kuta.
Heading up to the mountains tomorrow, hoping that chapter
one of our Bali stay is behind us!
