I was bitten a couple of times at Machu Picchu, but this bite was much worse than the previous record from Huaraz all those months ago.

A large lump formed on my wrist with a red rash that ran up my arm to my elbow. When we returned to Cusco we went to Inkafarma for some pills, paid about S./5 and was handed Cetrizine – which I already had half a tonne of.

We went to use the internet to upload photos, after a couple of hours some problems set in. I started to feel extremely tired, was coughing and felt a little nauseous. We left the internet cabina and walked slowly home to San Blas, uphill. This was difficult and I was feeling increasingly worse. We decided when we got back to our restaurant/bed-and-breakfast we would eat there – we had eaten precious little in the past few days and that would be making me feel worse.

We arrived back and I went straight to bed. Annett arranged for the kind owner to bring me soup to my bed, which I tried to eat as much of a possible, but shivering with a cold fever I soon fell asleep.

Tags: cusco, health, mosquito