South American Swine Flu - Day 7

Before we head to the airport, we make a trip to our new found favorite eatery in Cusco, Jacks.The great Peruvian gringo restaurant smack dab in the middle of Cusco. My first day in the city I ordered up a plate of French toast to help settle my stomach thinking I was going to get a little altitude sick. This time I didn’t hold back and ordered up the jumbo burger (I cant remember the real name of it, but it was something to that affect). And it was nothing short of jumbo, topped with all the great American toppings you could think of. Not only was this a gringo place, but it was straight hippy. I still cant decided if my burger was real beef or not, hell it may have even been dog, but it was nothing like a fat juicy America burger from George’s. None the less, it was delightful. After we eat we take one more stroll through the city and markets before we head back to the hotel, pack our stuff and catch a cab.

Before long we find ourselves outside our hotel flagging down one of the mini cabs to take us off to the lovely Cusco airport. We part ways with our wondering trekking companion, Hutto, and leave him to explore more parts of South America. We all wish we could stay a few more days or weeks and see more of this beautiful country, but a working society awaits us. Depression starts to set in. The only talking that occurs in the cab are the relentless efforts to get the cab driver to accept 15 Soles instead of 20 for the ride. A total savings of about .30 cents each. I learned a lot about the art of bargaining while in Cusco, it’s a shame I cant put it to use in America. Unless I am bargaining for something of little to no value, like who will drive home from the bar (talking myself out of driving of course).

We arrive at the Cusco airport and don’t wait long before we are boarding our LANAir plane toLima. A short 1 hour flight back to the capital city. As cramped as the coach seating was on this flight, I was more comfortable there then I had been in 7 days. Sitting upright in a nice cushiony seat, listening to widespread with cold air blowing on my face. I am trying to take advantage of it before the long layover.

We arrive at Lime International around 5pm and have a nice 7 hour layover before our 12:10am red eye back to hotlanta. I envision myself sleeping on that dreaded marble floor in the miniature food court again, but its too early for that right now. We grab a table and wait. If there is one thing I hate doing, it is waiting. 10 minutes pass by and I am already getting anxious and looking for something to do. We contemplate passing the time at the bar, but opt out as we are all running out of extra cash. The next best thing? People watching. Justin and I begin noticing about 1 out of every 10 people walking by are wearing some sort of mask over their face. Swine Flu is starting to scare everyone stupid. But after watching all these people, we start to get a little cautious ourselves and even begin to feel a little woozy. Its all in our heads of course, and I determine this feeling is because I am hungry. So I waddle over to the Peruvian McDonalds and order up a nice double quarter pounder and large fry. Now, I haven’t had McDonalds in a long time so I am really looking forward to slowing down my heart rate for the rest of the day.

Its not long after we eat that Justin begins to feel a little sick. He thinks he may be catching a cold so he goes to the in-airport drug store and buys the South American knock off of Air-Borne.He offers up one, so I take. A little extra vitamins in my system after this trip couldn’t hurt, right? Its not long after taking the “airborne” that I begin to feel a little nauseous myself. Its coming up on 9pm and it is almost time for us to get our tickets, so we make our way down to the Delta kiosk and stand in line. I begin to feel incredibly weak, so I throw my bag on the floor and lay down for a few minutes and try to mentally fight off this wave of nausea. It seems to work for a few minutes while we converse with some fellow travelers I met on my way down to SA just 7 days ago. But it quickly comes back and hits me like a ton of bricks. I don’t know what I should do at this point. Should I jump out of line and go take care of business in the bathroom? Or tough it out, get my ticket and try and sleep it off in the terminal. I chose the latter. I quickly realize my mistake when I make it to the customs line. There are a good solid 500 people in front of me with only 2 ass clowns checking passports and bags. My worst nightmare. Standing in a small room, people shoulder to shoulder, and it is hotter then hell. I continue to tough it out, but it gets harder and harder. I start thinking about Swine Flu. Do I have it? How will this crowd react if I just lose it right her on the floor? My first though? Everyone will run out of the room like they are trying to avoid the bubonic plague and I will be standing alone at the front of the line showing my passport. But I decide to save some face and hold back. I thought about jumping out of line and going to the bathroom, but the thought of having to go back to the end of the ever growing line was just not something I was willing to do.

After about 30 minutes of waiting in line, I have made it to the customs counter. I couldn’t help but think about Swine Flu while I was standing in line, and I have managed to build up this inner fear that I was slowly dying. I start to think everyone around me knows I have swine flu and there is someone waiting on the other side to detain me (my mind does weird things when I am delirious). Even the customs guy is looking at me funny. It was probably all in my head, or maybe it was because I was ghost white. As soon as I get my passport stamped I make a mad dash for the restroom, find the back stall, and being to feel better (for lack of a better word). I try and do so in a quite manor for fear of peoples reaction to someone yakking in the bathroom of an airport, but remember I had a double quarter pounder and large fry….lovely, uh?

I immediately feel better, clean myself up and make my way to terminal 23. Im delighted to see that the terminal is fairly empty so I head to the back and lay down to try and catch some shuteye. At this point is it about 10:45. Not 10 minutes pass by and I am back in the bathroom.Now I really start to worry. Do I really want to board a plane while I am uncontrollably sick? Or do I really want to try and change my flight plans, wonder into the streets of Peru and try and check into a local hotel? I make about 3 more trips to the bathroom before making my decision to board the plane. Flying coach is uncomfortable enough. Try to do it on a red eye flight with a pilled out hippy chick constantly passing out in your lap, a 6 foot 6 New York guido behind you kneeing your chair, no constant flow of cold air, all while getting up to get sick every 45 minutes just like clock work. It literally got to the point where I could look at my watch and say, “ok, I am going to have to get up in 5 minutes to throw up so I should probably start trying to wake up this chick now…” No one has ever actually been to hell and back….except me. I am the only one on earth who has visited the fairly depths of hell and come back to tell about it.

Our flight was about 6 hours and 45 minutes from the time we take off in Lima to the time we land in Atlanta. At about the 6 hour point I begin to feel a bit better. I eat a little bit of my breakfast muffin (I missed the eggs and hash browns because of my 5:15 appointment in the lavatory) and was able to hold it down without incident. This delights me. Hippy chick wakes up and we chit chat for a bit. I come to find out she was in Peru doing some volunteer work at a “troubled kids” shelter in the middle of the Jungle. She shows me pictures and videos, all with a huge smile on her face, and as odd as it is, that short talk with her completely cheered me up. We finally land in Atlanta and I couldn’t be more ready to get off the plane. But, just as my luck has always been, the passenger terminal that attaches to the plane is broken and we have to wait.We wait about 45 minutes before the pilot determines we need to go to another terminal. Now normally my blood would be boiling at this moment, but instead of getting a hot head, I turn to the hippy chick and continue conversation. Here we are talking about our lives when all of a sudden she bursts out “oh shit!” She has forgotten about her connecting flight to Birminghamthat takes off in 45 minutes. Poor hippy. I tell her she will make it if she runs her ass off to customs so she can be first in line. The flight attendants are nice enough to let everyone who has a connecting flight off first, so this gives her a head start. I swear she gets off the plane a good 10 minutes before I do. But she must have gotten lost somewhere along that long hallway in the international wing on the way to the main hub of arrivals. Don’t know how because there is nowhere to go but straight for about half a mile. Maybe she got turned around by the lone ficus tree by the bathrooms, or got confused by the “flat” escalator, but as I stand in line for customs I see her run in out of no where. How the hell did I get to customs before her? Hippies. I still wonder if she made her flight on time.

I finally meet up with the rest of my mates outside customs and we head for the trains to take us to baggage claim (they sat first class and thus got off the plane before I did). They ask me how my flight was, and I just give them the evil eye. This is when Justin tells me he was getting sick the entire flight also. That’s it! I now know what made us sick! Well, I think I do. I think it was that cheap ass Peruvian knock off of Airborne! We were the only ones who took it, and the only ones who got sick. Gotta be the fake airborne.

We quietly make our way to baggage as we are all upset the journey has actually come to an end.It feels good to be back in the good ol’ US of A, but at the same time I am disappointed the trip is over. I wish I stayed a little while longer and explored a little more. This is where “The List” got started. The top ten places I want to visit before I die. It has since grown to 20.

Drivin' That Train....to nowhere - Day 6

As we turn our backs on the "Lost City" of the Incas we start to realize our journey is over. Before we can even let it all sink in, we are on a bus taking us rapidly down the mountain. The bus driver is once again driving like a bat out of hell. Its almost as if something mysterious happens on top of that mountain and he is rushing us to the bottom so we don’t witness it. Or maybe he just wants to go home to his wife and kids. Or to a bar, who knows. Next stop, Aguas Calinentas where we will catch a 5:00 train back to Cusco. – Side note: I didn’t take a lot of pictures after Machu Picchu, so the rest of the blog will mostly be story time....

Before we catch our train, we have a little down time in "Hot Water,” so naturally we grab a bite to eat...and of course indulge in some celebratory beers. We all share our favorite moments on the trail, and some of the more seasoned traveler’s compare it to other trips they have been on. They are all in agreement that this was among their top 2 trips. Steve ranked it as his favorite while Nick and Beck place it in a close second behind the South African safari they went on a few months back. Nick and Beck are coming up on their 11 month away from home. It’s hard to imagine being away from friends and family for that long, but they seem so content, so at home traveling the world living out of a backpack. This is rather inspiring to me and I quickly decided that at least once in my life I am going to experience something like that. Maybe not as long as them because in our society you cant just take off for 10 months and expect to come back to a job. But one day I will do it, and when the time is right I will know.

After we eat, we part ways with Nick and Beck as their train departs at 3:00. I really enjoyed their company and learned a lot of things about their cultures that I will take with me back to the states. The rest of the group spreads out and does our own things for the remaining 2 hours. Steve and I head to an internet cafe and jump on a computer with "high speed" internet. This is where I learn about Swine Flu. I had heard about it before I left the states, but didn’t pay much attention to it. We start to fear that we may have a hard time getting back into the states without being detained and held for examination. I continue internet surfing, checking my email, and of course facebook. As I am reading my facebook messages I hear something poking around under my chair. Of all things, its a freaking chicken. Now, you have to picture this place. It’s not like your normal little town where everything is inside behind closed doors. Its almost like we are in a big market. Only curtains shield the inside of these stores from the natures of the Peruvian jungle. Unless you’re a "wealthy" store, then you have the luxury of a wooden sliding door, or better yet glass!. Now, my brain doesn’t process the fact that swine flu and bird flu are two different things at first, so my instinct reaction pushes me away from the computer and away from this disease ridden bird. Still, after reading about Swine Flu, I don’t want to take any chances. I sit there for a second and let the chicken do its thing. I figured it would peck around a few times and be on its way. Not this guy, he has found something in my pack. My last granola bar, and ill be damned if I let him have it. This is when I wish Jason was with my so he could kill it in a "PETA certified” way, but instead I just kick it out the door/curtain and it goes clucking along its merry way. I half expected some Peruvian restaurant owner to come yelling at me for abusing his live stock, but no one seemed to care. It must have been a homeless chicken. If you’re a chicken, homeless is better then live stock I guess, but I doubt he knew that.

I leave the internet cafe and head toward the train station, stopping in a local market to try and pick up some last minute souvenirs. Every market vender is selling the same worthless crap. Fake Alpaca blankets, hats, sweaters, coco candy, T-Shirts (after 1 wash I now have a belly shirt, and its for sale if anyone wants it), smoking accessories, bracelets. Again, none of this appeals me, so I leave and head to the train station where I meet up with the rest of the crew. 5:00 is rolling up on us fast and we are all ready to get on the train and try and take a short nap. But less we forget we are in Peru and nothing is on time. We wait a good hour before the train even arrives. Then the trouble starts.

We are on a "backpackers" train. This is basically a trolley car with old crickety benches screwed down to the floor. They pack us in there tight. And to make it comical, they situate it like most trains where we have to all sit facing each other. I’m in a leg lock with a dirty 22 year old hippy chick from England who just spent 10 days on the trail. Needless to say, it wasn’t pleasant. Here we sit, in an intimate position waiting for the train to start moving. no A/C, no lights, no movement. It gets hot in there real fast, everyone smells like hot garbage at this point. The sun begins to go down, and it’s starting to get dark in the train. This is where we learn that our engine has broke down and we have to wait on another one. But the one we are waiting on is having problems of its own. "10 minutes" the train instructor tells us. 10 minutes becomes an hour and a half. And just to mock us, an empty Orient Express train pulls into station right next to us, just glowing with its leather seats, mahogany molding, crystal Champaign glasses, and LIGHTS! Finally the half busted engine car arrives and we lock up to it and begin to roll out. Not 100 yards out of the train station does the thing stall on us. Granted, it starts right back up, but this is rather troubling. Its approaching 7:00, we still have a 2 hour train ride ahead of us, and we plan on partying back in Cusco. The damn train stalls out about every 15 minutes along the way. One time for about 30 minutes in the middle of the Peruvian Jungle. We begin to wonder is this thing is even going to make it to Cusco. At least we are all prepared to camp out again if we need to! But finally, the thing finds another cylinder or something and makes it the last hour without incident. It doesn’t go over 15 miles an hour, but at least we are moving at a constant rate.

Its 11:00 by the time we make it to Cusco (it’s really a small town outside of Cusco, but I cant remember the name of it) where we have a van waiting to pick us up and take us back to the hotel. It has never felt better to sit in a seat that has cushions. By this point I was so tired from the last 5 days that the van ride is just a blur to me. We make it back to the Hotel where we find our room just the way we left it. We all take long hot showers and head out to the bars. First stop, a nice gringo bar where we play darts and relive our trip. Hutto, Justin and I were kicking ass until Greg lands a bulls-eye to seal the deal from 10 feet behind the line. I argue it doesn’t count, but to no avail. We were out of beer and ready to hit another watering hole. I prefer another laid back dive bar, but some how we get swooned into a Cusco discteca. It was rather first class the way we got into this dump. We were just walking through Cusco's main square when we are all of a sudden surrounded by Peruvians begging for the chance that we grace their night club with our presence. Promises of free drinks and many beautiful women is what grabs our attention, so we follow some kid into his night club. Once we are in I turn to him to ask him about these free drinks, but he is no where to be found. Bastard. He probably wasn’t a day over 13 either. We got shunned by a pre-teen Peruvian punk. Whatever, we were in so we decided to stay and check it out. This place was pretty amazing....I will try to paint a picture for you….Carrollton’s TC Rose in Panama City in early April full of 16 years olds. That’s where we were. It’s like high school spring break, people! I have no idea where these kids came from. Not once on my trip did I see anyone that looked younger then I was, but here we were at a discoteca full of high school kids. At least they looked to be high school kids. I didn’t want to take my chances. We did a "frat lap," as Hurme called it, to check the place out. It didn’t take long to come to the conclusion we should leave. Not without another drink though. We all throw one back and headed home. We didn’t realize it until we left, but it was a little over 2am. All of a sudden I was dog tired. I couldn’t wait to get into my bed. Tomorrow we head out for our long layover filled journey back to the states.