Vortex

Thursday August 17 2006

I puked all night but for some reason I was still holding out that I would recover and be able to go out to the forest in the morning. By 5am I gave up on that and just tried to hang on. Rob made me some very weak Gatorade, which I tried to sip but mainly just puked back up. Finally in the afternoon, I’d had several hours of calm and was beginning to feel hungry. Ate a few bites of watermelon and kept that down. A few hours later I had some more watermelon, but that time it came right back up. It was beginning to look like I might miss the forest again tomorrow and I began to freak out that I would never find the monkeys again and my whole dissertation project would fall apart.

Even when I wasn’t puking, lying down was about all I could do. I was thinking maybe I needed that injection to get me to stop puking, and then a suero to get me reyhdrated. But mainly, I just wanted to avoid anyone getting concerned enough about me to send me to the hospital.

Here are some pictures Rob took whilst I was Vortexing. The first is our view of Volcan Concepión. The next is our building; our room is on the far left (you can't actually see it too well). The last photo is of the little patio outside our room. That's Rob's laptop on the picnic table.