20 years ago today - Day 291

Thursday, December 19th - Quetta

Coen is up and smiling in his groggy way. As soon as we’ve had our showers we make our way to the cafeteria. He seems more himself today. He says it has been getting better and that the bout of amoebic dysentery was awful to endure. He thought he was going to die at one point. He is quiet at breakfast when the other start chatting, but he is attentive and no longer in a daze.

He hasn’t forgotten that I need his help to get money from his bank. He brings his bank cards and ID and he walks with me to a local bank. We discuss various options with the manager but what Coen is most comfortable with is getting a $500 advance from his father in Luxembourg and then we go to the post office to phone my mother in Toronto with instructions on how to get $500 to Coen’s dad. I wanted to have $1000 in case my Visa card and bank card aren’t waiting for me in Rawalpindi as promised, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a wad that large in my money belt. The transactions still need to be completed so the money won’t be available until tomorrow, but it feels like a great relief. All I have left until the money arrives is $19.

We have a stroll out through the city for a few blocks after the banking is done. I find a market that sells gloves and buy a pair. My own have holes in them. I also buy a new money belt. After this, Coen is feeling exhausted. I walk back with him to the Boys and Girls Club and he crawls back into bed while I go off looking for lunch.

I have started taking malaria medicine. I have read a lot about it and know that it is dangerous. It can cause organ damage and hair loss and shouldn’t be taken for prolonged times. Malaria is carried by mosquitoes and the larvae attached themselves to red blood corpuscles and feed on them, which becomes like a blood disease with many side effects, like fevers, etc. They can attach themselves to red blood corpuscles because of their shape. The medicine is so powerful that it causes of the corpuscles to change shape so that the malaria cannot take hold. This takes time. I am supposed to take it for two weeks before being exposed to infected mosquitoes.

I started taking the medicine in Mirjaweh, figuring that there would be mosquitoes in Pakistan but I stopped in Dalbandin because it was obviously too cold for mosquitoes. But we are leaving Quetta in two days, dropping into the Indus Valley and climbing again to Rawalpindi. A week later we will be back in Lahore and preparing to cross into India. That is about two weeks away so I have begun taking the medicine again. The directions say I shouldn’t start and stop and start again, but I have to choose between the lesser of two evils. I haven’t noticed any obvious effects yet.

In anticipation of my money arriving tomorrow, I feel like going out for dinner again with the others. Coen comes with us this time, refreshed from his afternoon nap. He is only having the soup and bread with yogurt but he is happily amongst us again, even making comments and telling stories. I tell the others the story of him eating the hot pepper while waiting for lunch on our way to Polatli in Turkey, commenting on how red his face turned. He says I didn’t let him know it was hot but I had told him.

With the money issues resolved and everyone getting along together again, I can sense a shift, that we are ready to move on. It hasn’t been discussed yet, but the five of us cannot carry on together much longer. Coen and Vincent’s girlfriends are flying in to Delhi on January 8 and they will travel only with them after that. I am certainly not traveling on through India with Kate and Stephen, even if for the moment we are tolerating each other better. I am not worrying about it for the time being. I am willing to travel on alone until I find another cycling partner, but at least I will be beyond the desert, in places with other travelers that will likely be safer than here.