My older sister and her dh are in Peru, on vacation. This is what she just posted, yesterday.


We lost half of the tour people today to high altitude sickness. Throwing up, dizziness...i was feeling sick too, light headed. We are 12,500 feet above sea level. Your face and body is burning from the sun, but you are so cold, and all wearing our winter jackets. So you are hot and cold, all at the same time and you want to puke because you are so dizzy. We cancelled the hike up a mountain today because just going up to the restaurant on the 3rd floor winded us so bad we had to sit down.

So we went right to Lake Titicaca. This was so cool...google the floating islands in Lake Titicaca. These people live on these floating pads, all made out of reeds. The floor of the island is made out of them and you sink a bit when you walk. The huts are made out of the reeds and smell... Who could stand it? Even their boats are made out of reeds, i took this photo of one..
On to Cuzco tomorrow..

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Prayer should be your first response.
Not your last resort.

I used to live in that area, near Lake Titicaca (on the Bolivia side). Try being pregnant at that altitude, whew! We lived on the 3rd floor of a building (walk up) at about 10,500 ft. elevation. We eventually moved before I was 4-5 months along. I can't imagine what it would have been like walking those stairs at 9 mos. I gained a total of 18 lbs. that first pregnancy and that was with eating a huge Snickers bar every day. Your body works so hard just to be that it's very hard to gain weight.

I'm not sure what the planners were thinking with doing a hike up a mountain if they were just visiting that altitude for a short time. My dad flew down for 10 days or so, partlyto climb a 20,000 ft. peak, and he spent the first week acclimating. It takes awhile.

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Warmly, Darla Juliana
"Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle" (Philo of Alexandria)