March 26
Elizabeth and had I decided to share a room for our first few days in Lima. Our first night there, March 25th, was absolutely miserable. It was incredibly hot and, like most places in South America, didn’t have any air conditioning. Since E and I were sharing a room with two beds, we couldn’t exactly strip down beyond a certain point or it would have gotten weird. So instead we suffered through the heat, sleeping fitfully.
I woke up in the morning before she did and decided to head out and get some things done. After several days on the road, I had cycled through all my clean clothes and needed to find a Lavenderia to get my clothes washed. I decided to just walk around to see what was nearby.
An empty street in the neighborhood of Miraflores
There were political signs everywhere. “Alan Peru. The Safe Vote.” I don’t think Alan’s real last name is Peru, but he had signs everywhere.
Another political sign off in the distance.
I eventually found a laundromat. I walked back to the hostel in order to pick up my dirty clothes.
The hostel offered a free breakfast, so even though I normally avoided the free breakfasts that were offered at the various hostels we stayed at, this time I made an exception. It was kind of a lukewarm egg mini-omelette, toast, and a really weird-tasting slice of what I assume was ham. I only had one bite of the ham; it was disgusting.
By this time, Elizabeth had woken up and I let her know that I was heading out to run some errands. She didn’t want to come with me, so I set out alone.
It was mind-boggling how much English there was on the signage down in South America.
I dropped off my clothes and walked about 15 minutes to a shop that was supposed to have motorcycle gear. After getting sick in Tena because I hadn’t had protection from the rain, I had decided that rain gear was a necessity rather than a luxury. Once I arrived at the shop, I discovered that they were charging $300 for the one type of rain jacket they had. I decided to shop around a bit more. Lima was a big city; surely there would be a rain jacket somewhere that was more affordable.
I walked to a nearby store that reminded me of Walmart and asked if they had any large duffel bags so I could replace the one that broke in Chimbote. They did not, but told me to go to a mall in Lima called Polvos Azules. I went outside, hailed a cab, and was on my way.
Polvos Azules reminded me of a flea market. There were tons and tons of independent vendors, selling just about anything you could think of.
That’s right, including bootleg DVDs of Game of Thrones
After an hour, I found what seemed to be the right size duffel bag. It was only about $20 US, and it only needed to last for another month. I walked around the mall a bit to see if there was anything else that caught my fancy, but eventually decided to leave.
I walked around the area a bit. I had heard that there were motorcycle shops near Polvos Azules, and I figured that where there was a motorcycle shop, a shop selling motorcycle rain gear couldn’t be far away. After wandering for about 15 minutes and not finding anything, I decided to go back toward the hostel and grab some lunch.
Another political sign. This one reads “Yes I am old, but I have a lot of experience.” To be honest, I’ve heard better slogans.
Master Negotiator
Taxis in Peru are different than taxis in Colombia and Ecuador. In those countries, there was either a taxi meter or a rate card that you could use to calculate your fare. In Peru you had to negotiate the price up front. I hailed a taxi and told him where I wanted to go. He quoted me a price of 30 sols. That was a ridiculous price; it had only cost me 15 sols to get to Polvos Azules. I countered with 20 sols, which the taxi driver seemed eager to accept.
I felt pretty good about my negotiating skills for a few minutes. Then I started replaying the conversation in my head. After a few minutes, I realized I had made a mistake. The taxi driver hadn’t quoted me a price of 30 (treinta) sols. He had quoted me 13 (trece) sols. I had countered the initial price with a higher one. I felt like an idiot.
A Slight Chill
I had the taxi driver drop me off at Larcomar, an outdoor mall overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The weather was nice, so I took a few pictures.
By this point in the game, you’d think that I would know to look at the camera lens instead of the smartphone screen when I take a selfie.
I went to a nice-looking restaurant and ordered some type of salmon dish. I was seated next to an open window, and even though it was bright and sunny the wind blowing in from the ocean was chilly. I started to shiver a bit. After a few minutes I moved over so that I wouldn’t feel the wind.
But I still shivered a little.
Eventually my food arrived.
It tasted fine, but I kept shivering. It was a bright, sunny day and I shouldn’t have been cold. Maybe I had pushed myself too hard after being sick and my body needed rest. After finishing and paying for my meal, I hailed another cab and went back to the hostel.
Well, I tried to go to the hostel. I gave the taxi driver the wrong address. He asked if I was going to the Barranco neighborhood, and I said yes. This was wrong. The hostel was actually in the Miraflores neighborhood. Unfortunately for me, the street address I had given him existed in Barranco, so after a 15 minute cab ride he dropped me off at the wrong address.
I explained that this wasn’t correct, but then I noticed I had wound up next to an urgent care facility. I shrugged and went inside. If this was a recurrence of my bronchitis, I needed medical attention anyway.
After about an hour, I saw a doctor. He spoke English, so I told him about my concerns about the bronchitis and gave him my recent medical history. He listened to my lungs and said they sounded clear. He gave me something for my cough and sent me on my way. I hailed a cab and went back to the hostel.
Full-blown Fever
I made it back to the hostel, paid the driver, and went to my room. Elizabeth was gone by this point, so I grabbed a blanket, curled up underneath, and tried to sleep. At some point Elizabeth came back and offered to let me have the blankets on her bed. I gratefully accepted, and this kept me from shivering as much. I was able to take some ibuprofen and sleep.
I woke up several hours later. Elizabeth was gone. I still felt pretty awful. The fever was still there and showed no signs of abating. I decided to go ask the front desk if they had a thermometer I could use. They did not, so I asked if someone could go purchase one, since I was in no shape to go anywhere. To my relief they said they could do this. I gave someone there cash to buy a thermometer, and went back to my room. In about 15 minutes, someone came to my room and delivered it.
I immediately took my temperature, but couldn’t make out what it was registering. It was a mercury thermometer, but the mercury had not been dyed red as it is in thermometers in the US. It looked like the mercury went all the way up the thermometer, but that couldn’t be right. I had to gather my strength again and trudge down the stairs to ask for help reading the thermometer.
The girl at the front desk took the thermometer from me and read it.
And her eyes widened. My temperature was 40 degrees Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit. You can experience brain damage if your temperature hits (or rises above) 105 degrees, so for my fever to be that high meant that something was seriously wrong. I needed to go to a hospital before the fever worsened. I asked the front desk to hail a taxi for me.
Hospital
The taxi driver dropped me off at the hospital. I went inside and wasn’t sure where to go. I found an employee, told them I had a high fever, and needed immediate attention. Within about 10 minutes, I was taken to an observation room. Most of Lima had been fairly modern, but this hospital did not fit the bill. There was room in the observation room for 12 patients, and we were all jammed in there pretty tightly. There was a pretty wide range of people in there. Along one wall were some elderly patients hooked up to pulse monitors. The guy next to me was in a hospital bed. A few flies buzzed lazily around him, eventually landing on his t-shirt. He didn’t swat them away.
The doctor took my temperature. My fever had dropped a bit, but it was still high. They prescribed paracetemol, which is basically aspirin, and decided to keep me in the observation room in order to make sure my fever responded. I told this doctor about my concern that the bronchitis was coming back. She also listened to my lungs and said they sounded clear. Whatever was happening, this wasn’t a recurrence of bronchitis.
After an hour, my fever had dropped and they decided to discharge me.
Night Owl
I slept fitfully that night. I would take the medicine, which would reduce my fever for a little while, but it seemed to last for only three hours. Of course, I could only take the medicine every four hours, so this meant at least an hour of feverishness every three hours.
It wasn’t fun. Also falling in the not-fun category? I had to start running to the bathroom every now and again. I started wracking my brain, trying to figure out what this was. Had I contracted Zika virus? Or malaria? No…that was unlikely. I didn’t have any mosquito bites.
Around 3am, I decided to make some decisions. Elizabeth and I had the hostel room until Monday morning, March 28th, but since I was feeling bad I knew I needed a space of my own…and (more importantly) a bathroom of my own. Whenever the urge to visit the restroom would hit, I’d have to go out into the hallway and hope no one was using the shared bathroom for our floor. I pulled up some nearby hotels, found one with climate control and a private bathroom, and booked it for several days.
Once the morning rolled around, I took my last paracetemol pill, packed everything up, and went to the hotel. While I was feeling better, I stopped by a Farmacia and grabbed some supplies: water, more paracetemol, gatorade, Ritz crackers, and some Snickers.
By the time the paracetemol wore off, I was sitting pretty in the hotel, with as many supplies as I needed to wait for the fever to break. The problem was that the fever didn’t break.
By the time Sunday evening rolled around, I was miserable. I was, for lack of a better word, gassy. I had this awful, painful gas buildup in my stomach anytime I ate anything. I kept having to run to the bathroom, which must have happened upwards of 20 times that night.
Urgent Care, Take 2
By 8:30 am on Monday, I was on my way to the original urgent care facility I had gone to on Saturday. I had asked the front desk at the hotel how much it would cost to have a doctor come visit me, and they said it would be around $100 US…and potentially even more if I got a doctor that spoke English.
At urgent care, I had the same doctor I had seen on Saturday. He ordered a few tests, including a stool sample. The tests indicated that I was dehydrated, so he put me on an saline IV for a little while. I dozed, since my late-night bathroom runs hadn’t given me much time for sleep.
Eventually the doctor came in to see me. He said that he thought I had a C. Diff infection, which scared the bejeezus out of me. C. Diff is a potentially life-threatening infection. Google it. It will scare the bejeezus out of you. He prescribed me an antibiotic (which is ironic, since C. Diff is usually caused by the overuse of antibiotics) and said I should call back in a few days for the results of the stool sample testing.
Regular readers of the blog will already know that this turned out to be food poisoning, not a C. Diff infection.
After a few days on the antibiotics, I started feeling well enough to explore the city. Next time I’ll write about the park filled with cats and my adventures with roulette!