Day 104 (2 September)

Miles 1906.6 to 1907.9. Shelter Cove Resort to Bend.

We sleep in today, which means until 7am. When I get up, I realize that my stomach is still bad, very bad actually and I feel sick. So apparently the pills did not help at all. That’s why we decide to hitch out immediately and try to get to Bend.

Since nobody seems to be leaving today either (tomorrow is a holiday), we plan to hike to the highway, which is about a 4-mile roadwalk away from Shelter Cove. We leave at about 8am and the road walk sucks a lot! I feel terrible and have to throw up again. It is not only a walk on the road walk but also uphill.

After a never ending 1.5 hours we finally reach the highway and start hitching. And we are lucky! After only 5 minutes a truck with a PCT sticker on the trunk stops and we hop in. It is a very nice lady going by the name of Jennifer (?) who works for the PCT Association! So cool, and she is going on a hike today with her two dogs. Therefore she will not drive into Bend but will drop us off at a junction where we can try to hitch again. We have a lovely chat and soon arrive at the junction where we say goodbye.
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This time the hitch is difficult. There are tons of cars passing by but nobody would stop for us. We try to get a Uber or Lyft but there are no cars available since we are still too far away from civilization. But then after over an hour a car actually stops...and gives us some sodas! Thank you very much but we would have prefered a ride into town!

Well, we continue hitching and finally, after 30 more minutes a young woman stops for us and drives us into Bend to the next hospital. Unfortunately it is closed. We’ve now had enough of hitching and try again to get a Uber - and this time it works. After a couple of minutes a black car stops in front of the hospital and we get in. Our driver’s name is Lawrence and he tells us that he drives a lot of PCT hikers around in Bend. He furthermore tells us, that he actually gave a ride to a Swiss woman last year, here name being Heidi. “Heidi?!”, we both shout excitedly. “What’s her surname?” “I think Bronimann or so?” “We know her!!! We actually followed her blog last year when she hiked the PCT and met up with her in person two months before we flew to LA!” This is so funny!

We take a video for Heidi with Lawrence, he gives us his card, tells us to call him whenever we need him and drops us in front of the next hospital.

Here we are in luck. It is open, there is no cue and I get a proper medical examination, including giving some samples for the lab. The doctor is pretty sure that I actually do have Giardia and that the antibiotics the fellow hiker woman gave me yesterday, were not the right ones. But to be sure we have to wait for the lab results.

The doctor also gives me a prescription for antibiotics anyway and we go straight to the next pharmacy to pick them up.

Meanwhile Maya made some calls to our medical insurance and travel insurance to find out if they would pay for a hotel, since this is a medical emergency and we are forced to stay put until I get better. They assured her that they will pay for a 3 star hotel for up to seven days and we could just send them the bill upon check-out. This is really generous and we are so relieved that I get to recover in an actual bed without being rushed.

So we check in at the Hilton Doubletree Hotel and I finally get some rest in a decent bed, take my one time shot of antibiotics and go to bed very early today.