A Mountain Too Far

From king of the castle to sick as a parrot. I should be nearing the hut, halfway up Izta by now. I would be if I hadn’t eaten whatever it was that has made me ill. I felt a bit funny yesterday evening, but I’ve been on paracetamol for a tooth infection, so I didn’t think much of it. By bed time, I felt positively horrible. Headache, shivers and aches. I was convinced I’d been Swine Flu’d. I got about three hours sleep in all, but still got up this morning, had a shower and coffee to try and make myself feel better.

And I did feel a bit better. Not fluish anyway. But I didn’t feel terribly good either. I stood at the door for about 20 minutes trying to make up my mind whether to just go and give it a try and put up with the pain and tiredness. I decided against it. You don’t ‘give it a go and see what happens’ with a 15,000 foot mountain. I didn’t want to hold the others back either. And I thought it would probably be a fairly unpleasant couple of days, up on Izta feeling like this.

Turned out to be a good call. I thought it was Swine Flu last night. By the end of this morning it was clear it was something I ate. I’ll leave it to your imagination how I came to that conclusion. Suffice it to say I’ve been in no state to be out in the wilds, miles from any bathrooms. I’m gutted though. I don’t often get these sort of troubles. This is just the second or third time in four and a half years.

And I had bought a new sleeping bag, thermal shirt, headlamp and all sorts for nothing. And I made a huge bowl of curry to take with me and heat up on a tiny disposable stove I bought. But the photo below is sadly as far as any of it got. I’ll have to investigate the possibility of doing it again somehow, if not this year, then in the spring.