Sea lions at Española Island in the Galapagos.
Some days I’m snorkeling with sea lions and penguins. There’s other days where I’m just trying to get through the day without pooping on myself.
Today is one of those days.
I’m lying in a bed in Cartagena convinced I’m dying from food poisoning and trying to gather the strength to walk down the street to buy bananas. I just survived a five-hour bus ride. I’m dreading the three flights I have over the next two days before I board a boat for the Galapagos Islands.
I’m a very high energy person who can’t sit still so if I’m ever laying around then you know something is wrong.
“Fifteen more minutes then I’ll go buy bananas,” I tell myself.
“Okay, maybe another 15 minutes.”
Forty-five minutes later, I slowly walk down the street at sloth-speed to the Exito Express to buy bananas and bottled water. I’m too weak to filter my own water at this point. I go next door to a restaurant to order plain white rice. The old woman at the door can’t understand why I just want rice. I explain that I’m sick. She tries to give me chicken with my rice. I say no. Just rice. Her daughter understands my broken Spanish and says “She’s sick. She just wants white rice.”
I eat the white rice and practically crawl back to my hostel. I sleep until my alarm goes off at 3 a.m. Early morning flights always seem like a good idea until the day of the flight.
Two flights later, I arrive in Guayaquil, Ecuador. A few weeks ago, I booked a super swanky Galapagos trip on sweet last minute discount deal. I finally start to feel better once I arrive at the fancy hotel that’s included with the trip. And, then the pain hits me again worse than ever.
I spend the night spooning a fancy pillow in my swanky hotel room and reevaluating my life.
A lot of deep thoughts cross my mind. Mainly, I think of all the horrible experiences that I’d rather relive than to be here now. The root canal I had two years ago. Rush-hour traffic on I-35 in Austin during SXSW. The flu I had over Christmas. Every hangover I had in college.
Why is it that I always get food poisoning when I splurge and stay in really nice places? This happened in Indonesia on my birthday in 2011 and in Lake Titicaca in 2015. Both times I was eternally grateful for the nice bathrooms.
The pain in my stomach is immobilizing. I hug the fancy pillow tighter. I have flashbacks to India—the country that probably invented dysentery.
There was that one time in the middle of the 12-mile hike in McLeod Ganj where it hit me at the top of the mountain. And, I had to hike down six miles getting sick along the way. Once I reached the bottom, I was too weak to lift my water bottle.
There was that other time on the plane from Delhi to the Himalayas. Let’s just say I feel bad for whoever used that bathroom after me.
I now have greater sense of empathy for all my former Oregon Trail characters that died of dysentery and cholera. I literally feel their pain.
With each new pain in my stomach, I started mentally canceling the rest of my travel plans for the year. Mongolia in August? HELL no. Thailand in October? I’m never going anywhere where you can’t drink the water again.
Food poisoning is the only thing that makes me homesick. All I want to do is go back to America and eat bagels. No one ever gets food poisoning from a bagel.
Was traveling worth all this pain? I thought about the time my purse got stolen on that beach in Thailand and that other time in Barcelona when they also got my iPhone. (Both were my fault for not paying attention.)
My personal favorite was that time my foot slipped through the sewer drain in India. Thankfully, it was only knee deep so I didn’t break my leg. A kind Tibetan boy helped retrieve my flip-flop from the toxic black muck.
Why do I put myself through this?
I text one of my best friends to commiserate. She tells me I’ll make it through. I’m a fighter.
I laugh. I think I’m just insane.
I survived the flight to the Galapagos from mainland Ecuador and boarded the ship. I gathered the courage to leave my air-conditioned cabin the next day and had a chat with my stomach before I join the activity.
“Please don’t embarrass me,” I begged.
Forty-five minutes later, a penguin dove into the water as I was snorkeling. I forgot all about my stomach for a few minutes.
[This is the third and last installment of my South America Diaries series where I chat about what it’s really like to travel and live on the road full-time.]
