Pole to Pole
Day 118: Victoria Falls
Bicycle on the Zambesi Bridge.
I am taken to the local hospital for an X-ray. It's the sort of hospital you dream about when you nod off after a three-hour wait in a London casualty department. It has only been operational for a month, is spotlessly clean, well equipped and almost empty. The lady in X-ray has so little to do that before attending to me she has to set down the book she's reading - a slim paperback by one Dr James Dobson entitled Dare to Discipline - Permissiveness Doesn't Work. After four exposures she's satisfied and I take various studies of my ribcage along to the doctor who diagnoses a hairline crack and prescribes nothing more than paracodeine to help me sleep.Nigel, who said all along that he thought it was a cracked rib, is sympathetic but realistic. 'There's nothing you call do. The pain wears off . . . in about six weeks.'
My biggest mistake was to do it off-camera. Now I shall creak all the way to the Pole and everyone will think it's old age.
Bungi on the Zambesi Bridge.
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PALIN'S GUIDES
- Series: Pole to Pole
- Day: 118
- Country/sea: Zimbabwe
- Place: Victoria Falls
- Book page no: 262
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RELATED LINKS
- Health and Hygiene
- Day 12
- Around the World in 80 Days
- Day 27
- Full Circle
- Day 5: Taxila
- Himalaya
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