Im Really Sucking

Sucking wind that is.

Im way up here on the shores of Lake Titicaca at the frontier of Peru and Bolivia. Its near 4000m high and thats high enough to kill you if you come up quickly from sea level (a common problem for tourists who fly into LaPaz!).
Im not actually doing too badly with it because Ive been up and down quite a bit in the last week or two (to 4900m at times) and Im already a bit aclimatized (body thins the blood but also makes lots more red blood cells to try to carry more O2).

The trick with it is that its absolutely no problem when you are sitting around not doing anything.
But!... As soon as you try to do anything at all, you suddenly find yourself feeling very light headed, your vision swimms a bit, and you have to really start working the lungs to "catch up" with your "Oxygen Deficit"... I hope, recovering from my own Financial deficit when I get back to Vancouver isnt like this!!

And when I say "do anything at all", I really mean it...
For example, just getting onto my motorbike in the morning and puting the kick stand up is enough to make me have to sit there for twenty seconds puffing... Or, if I stop on the highway to take a picture of something, then I find that when I take the photo, I hold my breath to reduce camera shake... And then Im puffing agin for another 10 seconds.
This morning, I adjusted the chain tension on the bike and when I stood up, I very nearly blacked out...

It gives you a very good reason to "take things easy" as they say.

One amusing little related thought is that it seems that whenever I stop at a hotel or hostal up here, they always seem to give me a room on the third or fourth floor!.... so many stairs... I think its their little joke at the expense of the foreigners :) ... Im sure there are free rooms just the same lower down!

But, Im "on to them"!... I always ask up-front now for a room on the lower floors :)


I just invented a chicken joke :)

Why did the chicken NOT cross the road?
Cos he was up at 4500m on the altiplano and it would take him all day to get there... And hed surely get run down in the attempt (by a chicken-bus of course!)... And well, Heck, It takes far less effort to just sit down here on the side of the road and freeze or starve, or just pass out! :)))