Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Under the weather.


Before we left Toronto, there were two things we were afraid of. One: getting robbed. And two: getting sick. You can't prevent either. But you can do your best. Back in the winter, we’d made the trip to the travel doctor and loaded up on malarial medications and other vaccines. But you can’t take anything for the dreaded traveller’s diarrhea. Alas, last night Adrian and I both felt some rumblings in our tummies. And this morning we were finally inducted in the traveller’s diarrhea club. Not that we wanted membership. And to complicate matters, I now had a cold too, most likely brought on by the stress of trying to get my diving certification.

While Adrian sat around trying to establish where we could have gotten this stomach bug – Was it the bbq street meat? The seafood at the fancier restaurant? All the ice cubes in all our cold drinks? Was the cutlery not clean? Is it contagious? – I lay in bed feeling weak and congested in the 34 degree heat (humidex of 41), hoping it wasn’t Swine Flu. No, not really. But sometimes it’s fun to be melodramatic. Just not when someone else is doing it.

And Adrian’s constant analysis of every thing we’d eaten and drank in the last week was driving me nuts so I told him to go jump in the water. I meant that literally since Rubi’s had a swimming dock right on the clear water. Yes, Rubi’s was a vast improvement over our accommodations at Cross Creek. There was really no better place to be sick. Clean, comfy, quiet and sand fly free.

An American girl arrived from Guatemala without any money and a bank card that stopped working. To make matters worse it was Memorial Day long weekend in the states so she couldn’t even phone to sort it out. She was super stressed and starving but Tony, the owner told her not to worry. He lent her some money and gave her some food and told her she could pay him back when she was able to get money. See, told you it was a great place.

Melissa was a cool chick and we chatted for a bit comparing travel stories. She’d been in Guatemala for the last month and a half mostly in Antigua where she’d gotten sucked into the vibe there. She’d been lucky to find a room with a family so she’d had a really interesting time in the town. One of the benefits of traveling alone – 0ut of necessity you have to meet people, unlike Adrian and I who always had each other. We’d met people but not in the way that many single travelers like Melissa had.

Melissa set out to explore the island leaving me with the resident cat who was desperate to get at the leftover salmon Adrian had in the fridge reminding me to finally throw it out. Adrian returned from his swim and came back with a bag full of crackers, bananas, gaterade, fried rice and Pepto Bismo to quell our stomachs. Not my favourite meal so far but it helped a bit and the next day our stomachs were somewhat better. My cold was out of my head although my lungs were starting to ache as I coughed. Luckily I have a year’s supply of inhalers in my bag and I began sucking on one to control the hacking.

I stayed in again while Adrian went out to explore the island. He went to the beach near the old airport strip while I spent the day struggling to upload the photos. In the last 24 hours I’d only gotten 80 photos to upload. Crazy. So I gave up and began to work on filling in the gaps in my diary. It had been over a month since I’d blogged new stuff. I knew it was a long time. Yet, it all seemed like it happened yesterday. Good thing because there were a lot of days that needed to be filled in. I couldn’t be bothered to put up a new post with the crappy internet but at least I’d be ready when we finally found good wifi. Whenever and wherever that would be.

Adrian came back from the beach with a red face (sun burn) and wet underwear (he’d forgotten his swimming trucks). And we joined Melissa in the water off the dock. When we came out, Tony was kicking two guys out of the hotel for punching a hole in the wall of their room (they had been wrestling while drunk). He didn’t want guests like that he said. Melissa checked out after that too and it all felt a little weird. She’d told Adrian she was going to start at a dive school. But it felt like there was something going on. I felt bad for Tony because we were leaving tomorrow too, provided that I didn’t feel worse in the morning.

Although I still wasn’t feeling great and our stomachs were still not cooperating we headed out for dinner. It was our last day in Utila and we needed to end with a better memory than crappy diving instructors, weird hotel guests and an assortment of illnesses. The food at Babalu wasn’t going to be that good memory. But the sunset from the bar was.

4 comments:

Ayngelina said...

the irony is that it's always the fancy restaurants that make you sick! hope you feel better soon

liz and adrian said...

It's true - the two times I've gotten food poisoning while travelling were when we were staying at fancy resort (all inclusive) type places.

cheryl said...

i'm surprised you made it as far as you did with neither of you getting sick! :)

liz and adrian said...

it was bound to happen - and we survived. no big whoop.