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We drove back up to Hasta La Pasta campground and stayed for a month! Our kamikaze bird was back and trying to break it's neck by flying into our windows! We'd only just got back for goodness sake! Plus we'd ruined the yoga mat that we had used to cover the sliding door window so I used some plastic bin liners to cover it and the front windscreen.
At the campground it was action again right from the start as we celebrated Uwe's birthday. We had already sent him a birthday card a month ago because we thought his birthday was on the 11th January!! Oops! So we had do do another Photo Shop birthday card for him and got it printed out whilst we were in Asunción.
Our first job was to get everyone to sign it without Uwe knowing. We got a break because Claudia didn't go shopping on the Saturday but Uwe had to go because he needed to buy cakes. We would be having coffee and cake, a German tradition, for his birthday the next day so his job was to fetch the cakes he'd ordered from the local market. So whilst Uwe was away we managed to get the card signed. Our birthday card featured the two of us plus Claudia, Regula and Marion as fitness models, with Uwe starring as Jack Reacher (his favourite fiction character) and René as the bad guy Dr Noodle.
The card had taken hours to create but we'd had a lot of fun making it. We gave it to Uwe when we all sat down for coffee and cakes and it went down really well! So did the cakes! We had apricot cake, apple strudel and cheesecake. We had a lot of fun and afterwards went into the pool to cool off. Great birthday celebration.
Uwe's Birthday Party - Part 1 - Coffee and cake
The next day was Uwe's second birthday party - a real surprise this time because we would be having hot food followed by a pool party. Our job was to keep him occupied whilst everyone else prepared food, set up the tables and put up balloons etc. to decorate the pool without him finding out. It was a really easy job for us because Uwe wanted to watch his football team Nuremberg play another Hamburg team, St Pauli, in the second division.
Uwe set up his computer at one of the barbecue areas and we used his stick with a telephone connection so we could get a faster and more stable connection. The game ended 0-0 but I think Uwe watched a different match because he thought his home team Nuremberg were the better team. No way! St Pauli hit the crossbar, hit the posts, had a goal cleared off the line and the Nuremberg goalkeeper saved at least two definite goals!! But Uwe bought us some apple strudel that was left over from yesterday to eat with our coffees so we had to be nice about Nuremberg's missed points - they're trying to get to the top and get promoted to the first division!
After the match it was time to get changed and reveal the surprise for Uwe. We all sat at the pool and had really good beef and pork along with home made bread, salad and a world class Hasta La Pasta salad dressing! Marion is a really good cook. For dessert Uwe got his favourite banana split - Regula had ordered and fetched the ice cream from the local village.
Then the music was turned up and we danced at the pool all night. We had a great time and didn't get to bed until after midnight!!
Uwe's Birthday Party - Part 2 - Pool Party
It was certainly never boring at Hasta la Pasta and yet again the time just flew by. Kirsten also had a few health problems. The first was a really bad reaction to the yellow fever injection we'd just had in Asunción. Of course we didn't realise what it was and got a bit worried when she had a fever. In South America there are lots of mosquitoes and anything with a fever could mean malaria, dengue or any number of other nasty things we don't want to get!
Her fever came whilst we were trying to watch the winter Olympics which were taking place in South Korea. That meant it was on late evening, overnight or early morning for us. Kirsten loves the Biathlon so she set the alarm for 8am to get up straight away to watch it. But our internet connection went off just as the race was supposed to start. She tried and tried but it was no good. Completely frustrated (and overheated!) she stormed off to see if Uwe was awake and if he had a connection.
In the meantime, Uwe had gone out for an early walk, planning to get back for the Biathlon, but had got lost in the maze of sandy lanes around the campground! Kirsten was (loudly) whispering "Uwe, are you awake?" outside their motor home window when a very sweaty, stressed out, puffing loudly Uwe got back! They eventually got set up and watched the rest of the race. But afterwards Kirsten went for a siesta - something very unusual for her.
So maybe we should have realised that something wasn't quite right but we put down the overheating to the Biathlon stress and the siesta to the early morning start to watch the Olympics. Whilst Kirsten was lying down I had gone for a swim. When I got back Kirsten was really hot. I got out a new thermometer I had bought the last time I was in England and she had a temperature of 39.4 degrees!! Oh shoot, not good!
I made her food and drinks and we kept an eye on her temperature but we didn't have an internet connection so I couldn't look up what it might be and whether it was a reaction to the injection. She said she was aching a lot. Later in the evening I went to see Uwe and Claudia and Uwe looked up Yellow fever vaccination reaction using his phone/internet connection - can have flu like symptoms, fever and aches, for 3 to 4 days. That was exactly what Kirsten had.
So Kirsten took an Ibuprofen for the aches and pain and by morning her temperature had gone down. Over the next few days though, her temperature would shoot back up. It seemed to come in waves, and it completely drained her of energy. However, in between the bouts of high temperature she was back to normal and managed to get things done.
It really knocked her off her stride though and when she tried to do some fitness training she had to stop because she thought she was going to faint! The bouts of fever were replaced by bouts of low energy and generally not feeling very well. The reaction can last up to 2 weeks and affects approximately 3 out of every 10 people who are vaccinated!! No wonder they don't give the injections to babies and people who are over 60 years old. The good news for us is that we won't need another injection because that was a booster and our second injection, so we are now covered. I didn't have any problems at all but Kirsten suffered for over a week!
Whilst she was still suffering bouts of high temperatures and low energy she went for a swim in the pool but came back straight away because she had some kind of rash on her lower legs! It couldn't have come from the pool because she had literally just got in when she noticed it. We put that down to another part of the yellow fever reaction.
The third problem came when she was rushing to get ready to go with Marion to get her hair cut on a Friday afternoon. She had something stuck where the stitches were for the wisdom tooth that had been extracted. She got out a torch and mirror but the torch needed new batteries. She had no time but we had to get under the bed/seats to get more batteries out.
Then she needed something to use to remove whatever it was. I suggested a cotton bud (those things you use to clean your ears, in case there's anyone reading this who isn't familiar with the British term! They're called Q tips in America.) But the end was too soft so she cut it off! Yikes! She kept poking around and then brought out something that turned out to be one of the stitches! She had three stitches but they were supposed to dissolve. When she took another look, she had a hole where her tooth had been and there was something white in there. It looked like bone!! Oh God!
After her hair cut Kirsten phoned up Dr Neufeld, the dentist. He wasn't there and the following Monday was a Bank Holiday but she managed to get in with René and Uwe who both had dental appointments the following Wednesday, 5 days later. Kirsten expected the dentist to be surprised and concerned but his reaction was just the opposite. He said it was healing nicely!!
Kirsten said "But there's a hole there and I can see bone!" Apparently the white stuff was dead skin (yuk!!) and the "hole" wasn't a hole just a gap and the skin would eventually grow over it. So poor Kirsten had been worried for 5 days when everything was fine!
But along with my long term back problems, we weren't the only ones with health issues. Claudia twisted her ankle whilst taking Mia for a walk; Uwe had a swollen elbow; Rainer got the flew; Angelika was bitten by fire ants and had itchy and burning blisters on both feet; Rene swallowed his temporary tooth filling within hours of having it done and needed to go back to Asunción for another one, although Uwe offered to put the first one back in when it came out the other end; Marion stubbed her big tow and limped along with Claudia; Mia felt sorry for all of us and came out in sympathy and started limping too ... only Regula seemed to have nothing at all. She was up at 6.30am doing her exercises at the pool (way too early for the rest of us!!!) and then started making pasta.
So for weeks the morning greeting wasn't "Hello, how are you?" but rather "Hello, how are you TODAY?" and detailed health reports were then exchanged. It's no wonder that old people only talk about health issues!!! :-)
Whilst all this was going on the walking (limping) wounded managed to watch the Winter Olympics. I found out we had a Team GB and there were 59 British athletes taking part! That's quite a lot for a nation that isn't famous for winter sports! Okay so we had Torville and Dean, the ice skaters and Eddie the Eagle who became famous for coming last!
I've never really been interested in the Winter Olympics but I got into it this time. Our top medal haul was 4 - yes just 4 medals in 1924 Chamonix (the first winter Olympics) and also in Sochi 2014, the last winter Olympics. Apparently we were going for a record 5 medals!! Don't laugh! I know it's not much but it would be a record and therefore a hard earned accomplishment. Guess what - we made it!! We even won three of them on the same day! Wow! That's huge!
All the Germans on the campground were very interested in the winter games as they are usually high up on the medal table. So we watched all of the Biathlon races. We sat with Uwe and Claudia and watched on their computer using the telephone connection. But even then the internet went down and we missed the final shooting on one of the races. We couldn't get the connection back and had to look up the results later!
Uwe got really annoyed when the German team were on course for a Gold medal in the Biathlon mixed relay but ended up in fourth place because the last man missed so many shots! Two days later the German women's relay team were expected to get Gold and ended up 8th! But at least there was something for Uwe to celebrate when the German ice hockey team caused a sensation by beating Canada in the semi finals! That would be like Canada beating Germany in football!!!
Mia also needed some attention and couldn't understand why nobody would pick up the ball she deliberately dropped at our feet to throw it for her. We were all concentrating on the Olympics! I couldn't bend down to pick it up for her because of my back and I could only throw underarm but she still dropped the ball at my feet and waited. So we taught her to pick up the ball and hand it to me. It took a few tries but she's a very intelligent dog and she picked up the new trick very quickly. So did Uwe - he could now lie in the lounger and throw the ball without getting up!
We said sad farewells to Tina and Werner who'd been on the road for 3 years and were returning to Germany. They'd been at the campground for two weeks so we'd got to know them well. Whilst the gates were open for them to drive out, all the dogs escaped - René and Marion have 4 and there's also Mia. Claudia somehow managed to get them all back inside. She told us that all she did was shout "Leberwurstbrot" which means "Pate sandwiches" and the dogs all came trotting back!! Marion was astonished because the dogs normally go off for hours before returning!
We got busy doing some additions to our motorhome. Claudia has a soldering iron which she used so we could add an extension to our new 12 volt lamp that we bought whilst in Asunción. There was a problem though - the new extension kept blowing a fuse. Maybe our 12 volt lamp isn't a 12 volt lamp after all. So now we have a 220 volt lamp with a plug donated by Uwe and an extension lead so we can put it anywhere around the motorhome!
Claudia also helped with a 12 volt strip light. She had a 12 inch piece left over after they bought it for their motorhome which we inherited. We added some cable and a 12 volt plug. Now we have a proper light in the kitchen.
We finally got around to putting a new bracket on our sliding door. We had bought it last year because our door got stuck and was really difficult to get open again. It happened again, not once but twice at Hasta La Pasta!
Of course it was on a day when it was pouring with rain - the door got jammed and the rain was coming in. We managed to get it unjammed, only for it to happen again when we tried to shut it! We managed to unjam it and the next day, once it had stopped raining we finally put in the new bracket. Once we'd taken off the old part, we realised that we hadn't needed a new one - we could have simply adjusted the old one!!! Oh well, the new part is on now. You live and you learn!
Then it was party time again - Kirsten's birthday. Kirsten went into town the day before to buy the drinks and Marion made us a super Chili Con Carne. Regula and Claudia made the desserts and everyone helped out with the decorations around the table.
Kirsten got a super present - a new Germany football shirt with 4 World Cup stars on it. She still has the one with only 3 and is hoping she will need a new one with 5 stars after the World Cup this year! Her present came with birthday candles on top. Somehow the numbers seem to have been mixed up!
After the Chili Con Carne Regula got us to play a tongue twister game. She said that Kirsten always talks really fast (and probably meant "too much" aswell!) so she wanted to prove it. She had spent a lot of time writing out tongue twisters (in German of course) and handed out the envelopes. The people who got an envelope had to read out the tongue twister and then Kirsten had to try and do it faster and better. It was great fun and I think Kirsten won!! The desserts were served and then we danced the night away. A good time was had by all.
Kirsten's Birthday Party
The next day it was Kirsten's birthday part 2 - eating the rest of the Tiramisu with Claudia, Uwe and Regula. Yummy! That was followed by Uwe showing us the German version of Top of the Pops from the 1970s. God it was awful! Was Top of the Pops in England just as bad back then? Probably!!!
Just before we left we had a meal out with Claudia and Uwe, Regula and Rainer. By that I mean we ate at the campground courtesy of Marion's wonderful cooking! It was Claudia and Uwe's last night - they'd managed to break their own record of being the longest campers at Hasta La Pasta, 188 days! We had beef with Hasta La Pasta pasta, plus their own wild mushrooms in a sauce. Of course I had to have their home made apple strudel for dessert. Yummy.
Then we had to say goodbye to Claudia and Uwe but we had already arranged to meet up with them the following week in Brazil, so it wasn't really goodbye for us. But René, Marion and Regula would definitely miss them. Even the dogs were sad to see Mia leaving!
We spent our last two days cleaning, getting washing done and sorting things out. We also worked late in the evenings to try and finish some of the website reports. We've been here for weeks and have left it to the last minute to do an update! And we wouldn't even be up to date because we would still have the last 5 weeks to write about!
Finally it was time to leave and there were tearful goodbyes for us. It was hard to leave the campground that has become our second home. We would definitely miss René and Marion, Fabian and Thora. We drove out of the gate but didn't get very far before meeting Gyula and Gabi who had rented out a house at Hasta La Pasta for 4 months. We hadn't been able to say goodbye to them because they weren't in. So we were really happy that we met them driving back.
Then another 1km further Fabian and Thora drove towards us! So we stopped to say goodbye to them aswell. We were definitely going to miss Hasta La Pasta. But at least we knew we would be going back again. For now though, it was time to get back on the road of discovery.
