Day 882
Prostate stops play
Yesterday I got a message from a dear friend asking why we seemed to have stopped cycling. Was everything OK?
Well, the truth of the matter is things have been far from OK. Over the last six weeks Tom has had two severe bouts of illness leaving him too weak to travel, but after the trip to the hospital in Ibague we thought that was all behind us. Only it wasn’t. After riding the Trampolin Tom fell ill again. We had some leftover antibiotics with us, so he started taking them and we decided to make for the small city of Pasto. Easier said than done. Tom was so weak he was struggling to ride at all. Naturally we were faced with some of the steepest climbs of the trip so far. One lunchtime we pitched our tent beside the road just so Tom could go to sleep out of the rain. That night, unable to go any further we camped on a wet piece land at a bend in the road. I could see a restaurant only 500 metres away but it might as well have been the moon, Tom could go no further. The following morning, in heavy rain, we sat at that restaurant for an hour or so trying to hitch a lift. No joy, so on we went. Finally, we got over the hill and arrived in Pasto!
Tom had done his research and had booked an Airbnb for 5 nights close to a urologist and various medical establishments. Our Airbnb hosts very kindly offered to help out, driving Tom to three different clinics for the tests he needed. We presented ourselves at the urologist hopeful for good news. We didn’t get it. He said no cycling for 3 whole weeks! Sending us off with tablets and potions aplenty, he asked us to return for a checkup in 2 weeks. We managed to secure a much-reduced rate from our Airbnb hosts and settled down to life in Pasto.
Tom still felt very ill so he wasn’t up to too much but we decided to seize this opportunity to take Spanish lessons. We booked in at a place called POC, where Louis took us under his wing. We had our lessons in a morning and then went back for extra time chatting with the Spanish-speaking students learning English in the afternoons. POC though is much more than a school, it’s a family. So we’ve watched football with them (Colombia won) and even spent a weekend away at Louis’ family finca with great food, warm family and even a swimming pool. We’ve also met up with other cyclists. Helene, then Arnaud, have both stayed with us, and we’ve met other tourers for lunch and exchanging route advice. As we walk to lessons every day the locals now recognise us and say hello. We’ve got our favourite restaurants and coffee spots, we are definitely feeling at home!
When we returned to the doctors Tom was given the OK. He will need to be on medication, perhaps forever, but he can ride again! We are staying for the rest of the month to complete our Spanish course and, well, we can’t set off before our leaving party with our POC family on the 30 November!
