February 7th and 8th- Potosi Bolivia to Salta Argentina

I caught the night bus from Potosi Bolivia toward the Argentine border. I managed to make it to the border by Sunday afternoon and crossed with relative ease.

The next trick was to find a bus that would take me to Salta that day. Which was important since the small border town of Aguas Blancas, had no hotels, so if i couldn´t find a bus i would have to cross back into Bolivia to find a place to stay. Which also sucks because I only get 3 entries into Bolivia per year on my visa.

Well, I managed to find a bus that would take me out that evening, so I decided to celebrate with a piece of pizza that a girl was selling by the bus. This is where the story gets interesting.

I hopped on the bus, one of those nice double decker jobs, and within a hour I could tell that my stomach wasn´t happy. I´ve had that many times before while traveling, but this was feeling more ominous.

Warning*** This next part is pretty graphic, but I don´t know how else to tell it, so read at your own risk.

So I was on the top deck and feeling pretty ill. Fortunately the bus had a bathroom, so I grabbed my lexan bottle and headed downstairs to hit the bathroom. I figured the bottle might save me if I didn´t make it.

So I got to the bathroom and the door was locked. I could hear someone washing up. Before they finished I hurled into the bottle and discovered that the contents of my stomach were about 3 times the capacity of the bottle. So I created a fountain of puke which soaked all my clothes and pretty much the entire entry area of the bus.

Normally, throwing up doesn´t really bother me all that much, but this time I had the added complication of having torn the muscles in my side in my fall last week in Bolivia. So every heave was met with the tearing of muscle tissue and a sort of battle between my stomach which wanted everything out and my muscles which were convulsing and ordering the stomach to stop.

So by the time the person came out of the bathroom. I was in the fetal position in about 2 inches of puke in the entryway of the bus. But heah.....only 5 hours to go.

So the bus driver, who very much wanted to just drop me off somewhere....anywhere....in Bolivia, stopped at the next gas station to get me some supplies to clean up the mess.

So for the next 5 hours it was pretty much the same. Running to the bathroom every hour to purge.

So I finally made it to Salta and after walking around in the night and the rain for an hour (can I catch a break here?), I finally found a hostel, bought some gatorade and water, and started on my meds.