From the Hospital Bed, or, Is There A Passport Stamp for That?

Well, so maybe eating the week-old Indian Buffet served by a hacking, wheezing, jaudice-eyed old lady at 13,000 feet in Cusco, Peru was a risky move.  It sure tasted great!  And we missed our korma.  We missed eating anything with spice or seasoning, for that matter.

Two weeks later, I´m second-guessing myself. 

I write this from the Traveler´s Clinic in Cusco, where I am rather conveniently tethered to a six-foot pole by means of a much-needed bit of intravenous tubing.  I can´t move, so I´ll type.  One-handed, because as soon as my IV-bound left hand twitches toward ASDF, a sweetly militant nurse places it firmly back on the level bed.

Turns out Altitude Sickness, that awful lethargy and breathlessness, wasn´t the only malady impeeding my heroic ascent to Machu Picchu - I also had the good fortune of contracting four distinct strains of Salmonella, and to top it all off, a giant intestinal amoeba I dubbed Arnoldo (shout to Island Sol Sailing School and a certain equally nausea-inducing South American dive instructor).  Makes me wish there was a separate US Passport Addendum for Illnesses Sustained While Abroad.  Would give us backpackers one more thing to brag about besides our newest alpaca sweater addition, or how well we can roll our Rr´s.

I hadn´t eaten food, not a bite, in over a week, and to those of you who know how much I love food - Thai, sushi, pasta, seafood, salads with crazy ingredients, really elaborate breakfast sandwiches - Mel not eating anything at all is a freak, awful thing.

The weirdest part was, it wasn´t because of potentially humiliating public gastrointestinal encores, or pain - I was completely apathetic to the presence of food.  Why eat, when you can just watch other people indulge, and spend your Peruvian Nuevos Soles on more important things, like keychains with little googly-eyed llamas attached by their ears?

Today, my second day in the clinic, the mother hen-like nurses decided they were fed up with not feeding me, and forcibly ended my hunger strike by thrusting a rather mottled, mushy-looking plátano in my unenthusiastic mouth.  A weird sensation, chewing a banana for the first time in a long while, like oh, that´s what this mouth thing is for?  I thought it was only good for speaking primary-school-level Spanish and coughing Cusco smog.

And still no appetite, still impartial to the coming and reluctant going of the ubiquitous South American Pan de Mierda and jam, but the accusatory glares of the hospital staff are comparable to that of my Jewish grandmother at Passover Seder, so may guilt overcome stubborn salivatory glands, and compel me to consume a quesadilla.

Until then, the Pariwana Pizza Party will have to go on without me.  Just remember, folks, if a week-old Gringo from Portland is making your Pisco Sour tonight, chances are he´s whipping that raw egg into a lovely, frothy, Salmonella-infested foam atop your shot glass.  So drink up, and get ready to finally put that expensive travel insurance to good use. 


Here comes another freakin banana.