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.