Finding My Fix: Chronicles of a Travel Junkie

So here is that lovely post I promised, the one I accidently deleted… I’ve basically cut/paste it from an email I sent my mother and edited for your benefit, it’s not for the faint hearted.

28 May 2006–No, homesickness was not the kind of sickness Kara was refering to when she emailed my mother to let her know that I wasn’t in my best form, but not to worry, they were doing their best to take care of me. I had a nasty bug, probably food poisoning. It started out with some “pleasant” trips to the bathroom, and the next day involved three bouts of vomiting. The part that worried me most was that I couldn’t keep water down and was getting more and more dehydrated.

Now, two mornings ago is when it started. That night, Kara and I went to get dinner and I felt like I wanted to explode. Kara wanted to walk along the water, so I walked a bit of the way and then turned back. I don’t think Kara realized how sick I was. But I think she got the idea when she had the pleasant experience of listening to me retch, as did everyone else at our hotel. The hotel is made of concrete with a courtyard in the middle so you can hear any noise above a certain decibal from any corner of any room. That first bout, I’ll admit, was self-induced. I’ve battled stomach bugs enough to know that sometimes you just have to get it out, and a good way to do that is to chug water.

Upon hearing the lovely sounds, the hotel employees put on a pot of tea they said would help my stomach. I knew it wouldn’t stay down even if I did try to sip that concoction, the smell of which made me want to vomit on its own, but Kara, wanting to help, pressured me that I should. “It’ll help clean out your stomach.” You’re damned right it will; it’ll do the exact same thing the water did, but water tastes better. I took a few sips anyway, and 15 minutes later, they got to hear bout two.

I knelt with my head in the toilet, barely able to breathe. When my stomach was finished, I collapsed on the cold tile floor until my breathing slowed and my muscles stopped trembling. I peeled myself off the floor and crawled back into my bed where I tried sleeping until Kara came up to report that I ought to finish the tea because the hotel staff said they would be needing the glasses back. I had finally found a position on my left side, my hand at my knee, where, if I concentrated hard enough, my stomach would stop churning. But I finished that tea anyway, and that’s when I had bout three, and that’s when I cried a little bit, and that’s also when Kara and the hotel staff went off to find me a doctor. But as it turns out, doctors in Essouira don’t work on Saturdays, and are fairly worthless anyway. They’ll take your money (and then some, if they see your a foreigner), and send you to the pharmacy to buy something you could have bought had you not gone to the doctor at all. Antibiotics and intravenous are not readily available there. My throat, parched from dehydration because I lost more water than I was able to keep down, would have to wait for my immune system to do the work itself. Luckily, it did.

Now my stomach is doing a hell of a lot better (I had breakfast of a bit of fruit and cereal), and the rest of the system is also having an easier time of it. Now my biggest problem is homesickness. I really cannot wait until we get to Spain. Spain is a developed country and by god I want to be in a developed country!!!! Never in my life have I appreciated so much being born and raised in a developed country. Sanitation, hygeine, medical care, these are things I used to take for granted.

Oh, I called my mother first chance I had to leave the room without wreching. The phone was a pay phone and I was only able to talk for 20 seconds or so, and the sound of my mother’s voice sent me into tears. The woman working at the phone place held me to her shoulder as my tears fell on her scarf. People here are wonderful, if only it werent so easy to get sick in countries like Morocco!

For anyone wondering or worrying. I am now safely in London and enjoying it. Stories about my other destinations will follow some day.

Tags: 4C. Italy, 5. Africa, 5A. Morocco, illness, Slovenia, Travel

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