Wind Down

My final night in Ecuador I faced I'd caught a fever (my skin was crawling with the chills) and that my tummy felt yucky. It was cold and rainy and I could barely sleep. In the early morning, I jammed my months-worth of purchases into two bags, alongside of sandy clothes from the Galapagos and wet socks from traipsing around Quito's torrential rains. My hostal manager made me some chamomile tea and after sipping as much as I could, I caught a cab to the airport.

After paying a pricey departure tax, I was informed that the only way I could take my Inka Trail walking stick back home was to incorporate it into one of my two official bags.... Either that or pay $100 for an extra checked item. The airline folks advised me to have it plastic-wrapped against my smaller bag (a cloth Ecuadorian duffel bag) for $7. Initially, I didn't believe it would work as the bag kept collapsing as more plastic was imposed on it and the stick....eventually it did work and I made it over to the final waiting room. As I took a seat (next to Amanda, an Australian woman who had been on the Galapagos tour), I faced that I really felt sick. She'd been sick (with some version of this bug) during the tour...and confirmed that whatever I was feeling was "real."

I went over to the airline desk and told them I didn't feel well. I must have looked pretty bad in that they immediately offered to let me fly another time. The thought of taking a cab back into rainy Quito sounded worse, so they changed my window seat to an aisle seat to enable me to get up and down more easily. Then I proceeded to take all the possible remedies I could: tylenol and ibuprofen to reduce the fever...and Bonine and Immodium for my tummy. Amazingly, I survived the first stretch to Miami, even partaking in a bit of breakfast. Miami was a total zoo. First there were passport inspections. Then all baggage had to be reclaimed, inspected by customs and re-checked. The first sign of American life was a Starbucks which was absolutely teaming with customers. Then there were all the business people on cell phones, blackberries, and laptops. For a moment I thought, wow Americans are so industrious! Then I remembered all the ladies in Ecuador with pails of mangos, all the barkers selling chips and sweets on city buses, and the countless Peruvians who engage the tourist dollar around Cusco and Machu Picchu. I went through one more (huge) inspection line in which terrorist contraband was again investigated (in Quito I'd gotten a nearly-full water bottle through inspection with no problem). This time I ran no such private tests...and again passed. Eventually I was seated on my last flight of the trip. Still feverish, I wrapped myself in the flight blanket and hoped for the best. The flight had yet to take off....and suddenly I found myself ruffling in the seat pocket for the airsickness bag. My worst travel fears began.... I began puking, first in the bag...and then just all over--the airline blanket...and one of my jackets. Two flight attendants rushed over and began to bag up all the soiled items...a nearby passenger, handed me several wads of baby wipes, another puke bag and a bottle of water. The attendants asked if I would prefer to fly another time, advising that it was completely feasible to wheel the plane back to the terminal. In that moment I felt better....and opted to stay on the flight. All I did for the next six hours was to drink ginger-ale, and stare at whatever movies/TV programming were playing. I arrived into the cold of LA, still sporting a Galapagos suntan. My cell phone was completely dead (I'd burned out the charger by plugging it into a 220 volt outlet on my first night in Lima). Fortunately a woman on the curb allowed me to use hers to call Don. He eventually came (the traffic that evening around the airport was so thick that he took him several tries to access airline curb in which I was waiting.)