Say no to drugs!

What long strange trip it has been. Day 3 is the weirdest. The night before we eat at our hotel/bed and breakfast called El Chiclero in Burrell Boom. A homemade dinner with lots of garlic. My neck is hurting so Joan, the owner of Bear Mountain Boat Shop works her magic and manages to contact a chiropractor/accupuncturist on saturday night. (side note) Joan and her daughter Jennifer are the people that designed and built the Maaga Ting. They are friends with the owners of Chaa Creek and live in Ontario Canada. They flew down to from Canada to support us on our journey and continue her work as an ambassador for the sport of canoeing. Joan is an amazing person and is clearly loved in Belize. We owe a lot of our success to her and Bob Vincent (Laurel will fill you in on the BOB blessings). 

Anyway, we manage to get a ride into Belize city on Saturday night for an 8pm appointment with Dr. Kim Lee... the chinese chiropractor. We are more than fortunate to have Tamela and Curtis, native Belizians, ride with us on our journey to the doctor. We learn a lot about Belize history, politics, culture, music and food. We learn that 24 hours in the penal system only means 12 hours so if you have a 2 day jail sentence you are out in a day...??? We get a tour of downtown and end up at the doctor. I get popped, twisted, poked and suction cupped back into working condition and we head back to Burell Boom Belizian style - windows down, music up and singing all the way. 

The next morning I wake up sick to my stomach. I try to drink water thinking I may be dehydrated. I immediately throw up the water. I try to eat cereal to keep something in my stomach which works.. for about a half hour. 

While unloading our canoe in Bermudian Landing I walk to the side of the road and hurl my breakfast in front of all the paddlers. I figure having the stroker (bowsman) throwing up on the side of the road will throw off the competition. Feeling better I drink some water and get ready for our 4.5 hour paddle. 

I don't remember much of the paddle. I know About 2 hours into it I take what I think is a muscle relaxer called Robuxasin (sp?). Laurel mentioned that the only way to REALLY get through such a grueling event is drugs... more specifically muscle relaxers. Anybody that knows me knows that I do not take any drugs..ever... so in the rare instances that I do take a drug it has a profound effect. My neck is starting to hurt again so I pop a little yellow pill in my mouth and continue to paddle. About 5 minutes later everything starts getting blurry. I can't really hear anything anymore and I have what can only be compared to as an out of body experience. I know I am paddling but I am not sure how. I see things in the river so I start calling out everything I see. This lasts for what I think is 45 minutes. At one point I think of telling Jacinta that something is really wrong with me but I can't muster the words. And then... just like that... I snap out of it. I yell "I'm Back" but I realize that it is completely out of context and my teammates have now idea what I am talking about. 

I continue paddling but I am puzzled why I was tripping out. Was I dehydrated, was I sick, was I tired? Regardless we finish about 12 minutes ahead of the Belizian women. I am still out of it and my neck is hurting more than ever. I stay by the canoe and decide to check my pill box. It turns out I accidentally took a vicadin not a muscle relaxer. I am/was literally stoned! It is the strangest morning ever. Even stranger is that after 4.5 hours of paddling we are no more than 12 minutes away by car from where we started. We stay at the same hotel for the last night of the race. Three and a half hours (30 miles) more to go!