The last night of our Amsterdam to Budapest cruise was awful. My throat felt like I’d swallowed a bucketful of rusty razor blades. Breathing hurt, swallowing was excruciating and sleeping was impossible. We had our bags packed and standing outside the door, ready to be on our way for the Eastern European leg of our tour, but frankly, I would just as soon have gone home. But that’s easier said than done – flights, hotels etc. Apart from that, I didn’t fancy the prospect of a long-haul flight feeling the way I did. I consoled myself with the knowledge that it was going to be a big bus with only sixteen passengers so we could spread out, and all but two of our fellow travellers had already been subjected to the lurgy doing the rounds on the ship. A few of them still had vestiges. Besides, what I had was a throat infection, not a virus. If nobody tried kissing me they should be fine.
Our new tour director, Tomas, was informed of my situation and arranged for a doctor to call on me when we reached out hotel in Cracow. With something to look forward to, I did my best to enjoy the drive.
On the way through the Hungarian countryside, Tomas explained a few things about being on this side of what used to be the Iron Curtain. One of the most important issues for us was that everybody became so accustomed to drinking crappy coffee that they persuaded themselves they liked it, and that was how it came. When we stopped for lunch in a small town, he was proved right. Being a Sunday, not much was open, but we snared a couple of take-away sandwiches in the equivalent of a 711, and then bought coffee at an ice cream shop (as you do). We opted for a latte, and Tomas was absolutely right. It was horrible.
The roads were packed on what we were told everyone assumed was probably going to be the last sunny weekend before Autumn took hold. The skies were packed, too. This is just a small number of the hang gliders floating around up there in this area. It’s a national forest, and bears and wolves live in there. We also passed by Orava castle, perched on a rock above the river of the same name. It looks a bit like Bran castle (Dracula’s castle) but that’s in Romania.
Eventually we made it through the thick traffic to our hotel in Cracow, across the road from the Vistula River, next to the castle and not very far at all from the Old City (as we would soon discover).
We passed on the city orientation tour, more interested in the arrival of the doctor. She was escorted up to our room, a pleasant young woman who spoke good English. We still had to resort to a bit of body language every now and then, but there was no doubt she understood. My lungs were clear (good) my throat was inflamed. She wrote out a note for me, explaining how I was to take the medication she would prescribe. Then on a second sheet she wrote a prescription for the pharmacist, and then she wrote out the bill for us to give to the travel insurance people. We paid her in cash. The visit cost around $60AU, which we thought was pretty reasonable for a house call on a Sunday evening. She said yes, we could fill the prescription tonight, provided we made it to the pharmacy before 8pm, ask at the desk for the closest shop.
It was around 7:30, so after she’d gone, we grabbed our coats and headed for the lift. Pete asked if I had the script. “Of course,” I said, patting myself down. Shit. I didn’t have the script.
We went back to the room. I’d had it in my hand, I was sure. We found the sheet of instructions and the bill. No script. We looked everywhere, but it had vanished, evaporated into thin air. You’ll have to imagine how we felt. We were both sure (weren’t we?) that the script had been here when the doctor left. But maybe not. We didn’t have too many options. We went down to the desk and asked the clerk to ring the doctor, who insisted she’d left the script on the table. The clerk suggested one of the staff come up with us to take another look. That was fine by us – a fresh set of eyes. As it happened, Pete sat on the bed and bent to look under it – when a piece of paper caught his eye, shyly trying to hide behind the leg of the frame where you put your luggage.
Everybody sighed with relief, the staff member gave us a map with directions to the nearest pharmacy (look for a green cross) and we were off. It was in the old town, so think crooked streets and cobblestones, but we made it before closing, and joined our fellow travellers for dinner.
I’d love to say I got some sleep, but while an antibiotic will do the job, it isn’t a silver bullet, so I endured another uncomfortable night. We were up late and missed the walking tour of the castle and the old city in the morning. Pete went on the tour of the salt mine, though. The salt deposit reaches down to 327 meters and has been mined since the thirteenth century. Here’s the website. But the Wikipedia entry might actually tell you more. Pete said it was great, and I was sorry to have missed it.
But that’s life. My throat was starting to feel better and tomorrow we were off to Warsaw. Via Auschwitz.
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