volcanoes and dengue...

Q: what's the first thing one should do upon returning to a previously banned island because of an "overly active" volcano?

A: duh, visit said volcano.

after a month stay in port vila, i returned to ambrym re-energized and grateful for the opportunity to get back to my village, my house, and even my "amenities". this lasted about 2 weeks, at which time i realized that 1.) the water in my bucket shower was even colder now that we were moving into "winter" and 2.) cheese still does not (and never will) grow in the garden. these discoveries had me feeling a little down on my luck but then i was fortunate enough to have a visitor! enter justine from germany, a friend of a friend who was passing through after her 4 month trek through southeast asia. so it's early may and we decide to take a trek to the volcano. after much debate, we decided on our route and headed out to bathe in a lake of lava (this illustrates how little i know about volcanoes).

we take a truck to Lalinda, the base of the "road to the volcano" and meet our guide, joses. we talk through the plan...the road is essentially a dry creek that we'll follow to the ash plain. about 2 hours, joses estimates. the ash plain is where we'll camp so we'll drop our packs and continue on to the volcano (1.5 hr hike). we're stoked and justine is running around singing "we're going to the volc-ah-no" and she speaks like 4 languages so i'm not even sure what kind of accent that is but it's funny. so we sleep at Lalinda, rise bright and early, and set out with smiles on our faces. a half hour into this smiley adventure rain starts pouring. pouring to the point that the dry creek is now a regular creek, like one that you can't walk in. joses begins to clear a bush road for us (i guess normal people would call this a trail) and 5 HOURS LATER, we arrive at the ash plain. it's still pouring and you can't even see the alleged volcano. we set up tents, start a fire and try to dry ourselves. the rain continues into the night and we go to sleep crossing our fingers for sunny skies in the morning. at sunrise the sky is clear enough to see the volcano! we quickly pack our tents and within 30 minutes are on our way to the volcano. it seems perfect and i'm taking my sweet time, taking pictures of everything i see because it's truly gorgeous and breathtaking and awesome and inspirational...whatever you want to call it. as we reach the top of the volcano clouds move in and cover the mouth. arg. we literally can't see anything and i'm regretting all the time i wasted taking pictures and admiring the view. we wait for an hour, hoping the clouds will clear. no gat. the volcano itself is cruel because we can hear the lava churning inside but no matter how much we stare, we can't see a thing. double arg.

after one hour, we give in and head back to camp. we're defeated but the trip back to the ash plain goes by quickly. we grab our packs, take one last look at the volcano which has disappeared behind clouds, and start the descent. going down should be the easy part, right? wrong. it's steep and slick and we can't keep our footing. it takes four hours to return to Lalinda (again, not the promised 2 hours) and i have blood soaking my socks thanks to several blisters. i'm frustrated and feeling a little competitive when i ask joses "who actually hikes this road in 2 hours?" "men", he answers. fair enough but i'd like to see it. anyway, i'm still frustrated that the trip took us a total of 12 hours when, in an effort to make me feel better, he tells me " i no wan samting, yu yu bigwan be yu wokabaot strong we". translation: you hiked well for a fat person. no matter how often i hear it, i will never get used to people casually telling me that i'm fat. seriously, it happens several times a day but i still don't have to pretend like it's normal. the worst is when they call you "fat fat" it's like they put the second word on there for emphasis. so rude!

we meet the truck, say good bye to joses and head to another village to meet up with daisy, our volcanologist friend. we eat and regale her with the tales of rain and clouds. then we sleep what should be a deep, restful, you-just-hiked-for-12-hours, sleep. wrong. shortly after closing my eyes i have a fever. my head and my eyeballs hurt so badly that i can't see straight and i'm sure that i'm going blind. my whole body hurts to the point that i can hear myself moaning in pain but i can't do anything to stop it. i have to pee but can barely get out of bed because i'm so weak. once i manage to get myself upright, i can barely walk because a tiny cut on my ankle has caused it to swell to twice it's size. this continues throughout the night but with bouts of chills and sweats where i find myself covering up with anything i can find (trash bags, backpacks, and even my waterbottle at one point) to stay warm and then ripping everything off a minute later as i soak the sheets in sweat.

it takes a truck to get me back to my village where i swallow some antibiotics for my swollen leg and stumble to my bed where i prefer not to be touched until i feel better. unfortunately, my village wouldn't have it. they don't believe that i can sleep it off so they put me in a tub of boiling water and cover me with blankets and try to sweat the sickness out of me. then they take all the blankets off (brrr) and try to rub the sickness out of me. i was too weak to protest anything they were doing to me, including when they told me to take my shirt off. i'm outside of my house now getting an unsolicited rubdown in just a bra and shorts. the whole village is watching so i can hear everyone snickering and making jokes about my belly and how much simboro i can eat. i want to tell them that their comments are very poorly timed but i don't have the energy to talk.

fast forward 3 days when i finally can get out of bed on my own and i determine that i've been suffering from dengue fever. i'm not a doctor but i like to think of dengue as malaria's cousin. better yet, a combination of malaria and mono...a flu-like sickness transferred by mosquitoes (that's the malaria part) with extreme exhaustion (that's the mono part) and depression (that's dengue's own little twist). anyway, i don't know how it works but i know that it was awful and that i'm supposed to be "exhausted and depressed" for weeks to follow. luckily, the depression never caught on but i certainly was exhausted (or lazy?) for a few weeks. the swelling in my ankle went down within a few days but the tiny cut turned into a sore that lasted 2 months, thanks to this tropical climate.

looking back, it wasn't that bad. i never thought that i was going to die, i just wanted to. and now that i'm feeling better, i've got my eye on that pesky volcano again.