Shots, shots, shots...

   One, two, three and six little shots for the road!
Yep, you might not know it but to walk across South America you need some immunization so... And they are numerous and costly.
A small detail I had not thought to include in my budget !
All the immunizations are only recommended, and so have to be fully paid (especially when you are on student social security) but it is South America, crawling under nice kind of Mosquitos and wild animals with doubtful hygiene.

   So I head towards the Pasteur Institute in Paris to enjoy three weird named shots the same day in the same arm: typhoide fever, hepatitis A and yellow fever. All this will leave me with only one functioning arm for the coming five days.
Two important things here: I did the first two shots out of security but the yellow fever is compulsory to pass certain borders in South America (so you must carefully keep the immunizations book close to your passport at all time !), and so you need to let them stab your arm knowing the long list of possible side effects of the vaccin that were written on that sheet of paper they gave you during your two hours long wait. The second small detail is the nice price of all this... With every shot ranging between 40 and 60€, not using my left arm will have cost me 150€! But new information I obviously didn't get then: every regional immunization center is allowed to chose their own prices, making the three shots I got worth only 80€ in Southern France. As you may imagine, this discovery with my 150€ arm will have warmed my heart greatly, and so I will go get the next three down south !

   So this summer my vacations in the Basque Country will get organized around three very precise appointments to get Rabies immunization. The upside is that the vaccin is not painful and costs here only 63€ total instead of the 150€ of Paris.

   But that's not it, it would be too easy ! You need to add to all this a few boxes of medicine to prevent Malaria, and many mosquito sprays for skin and clothing, to smell very good during my trip, to also avoid chikungunya and dengue fever.
With all this you do need to know that the rabies vaccin only retards the sickness, which can save your life if in contact of doubtful animals when far from a big city, but doesn't make you completely immune. If in contact, you still need to reach the nearest antirabies center to get two more shots and stop the sickness (and death ...).
Same for the Malaria, the medicine only helps to prevent but you still need to protect yourself with sprays.
And on top of that, there is no known prevention against Dengue fever and Chikungunya, the only way is the sprays. And there you need to know that one of those two diseases is past on by daytime mosquitoes while the other is by nighttime mosquitoes ... Henceforth, you need to smell of chemicals day AND night if you can't sleep under a mosquito net. I think you can smell the joy that this idea gives me.

   Good thing I want to go to South America so much because these diseases could really make you change your mind !!

Sorry dear friend, I won't share a drink with you.