#2779, Thursday, January 13, '22: Well, that didn't take long

Reverend Ken's Travel Blog

Post 2779

- 12 years and 13 days since I started this blog -

Winter Travel Journal
(written Jan 13, 2022)

Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 11 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical situation and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, but lately it has become infrequent. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling, except for the occasional food shot when I've eaten something interesting. And that's where we find ourselves now.

The last time I wrote, I mentioned my altitude adjustment problems, and predicted they'd take four or five days to wear off. They didn't. Instead, they got worse.

Turns out, somewhere along the line, possibly at an airport or on a plane, I caught Covid.

For the last four days, I've been quarantining, made possible by my Cuencano friend Fenigno, chef/owner of my favorite restaurant, A Pedir de Boca, from my last visit. He has brought me food every day. He closed the restaurant permanently when, after Cuenca emerged from lock-down, the regulations to reopen were too impractical to continue it. I miss it very much. But he is a true friend.

Today, when he came with his latest delivery, with lots of fruit, he took me to take my test. We walked to St. Inez Hospital, which has a pharmacy and a lab. I had to stop and rest a couple of times along the way, my pulse (I wear a FitBit) was racing. He took a couple of pics along the way, and we walked through the beautiful University of Cuenca campus to get to the adjacent hospital.

But man, by the time we got there, I was played out . Exhausted, weak, shaky. It was around 1:30 in the afternoon. We had to wait 15 minutes for the test. We took a cab back. 

I got my results back in 8 hours.

I will be quarantining for a week, having done three days already.

So, I'll see you on the other side of that.

Resting by the Tomebamba. Lack of stamina is my main symptom. I stopped coughing a couple of days ago,

This 3-dimensional mural is called 'The Tree of Life. It is on the Library building of the University of Cuenca. 

Another pic of me in front of (you could say spoiling) the Tree of Life. My friend Fenigno, who took all these pictures, attended this University and is getting a little artsy here. 

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