12/23/07 Outside Taxisco, Guatemala
Just as I finished my ginger ale in the food court of a modern shopping center, I felt my stomach start to tighten up. I went from feeling completely normal to feeling nauseous and clammy in two minutes. When I got that sour taste in my mouth, the one you get right before you are about to get sick, I stood up and scurried toward the bathroom.
Five stalls.
No doors or toilet seats.
I picked the stall furthest from the janitor mopping the bathroom floor and knelt down. The second my knees hit the floor, I got violently ill. Blaaaaaaaaagghhhhhh. Ugghhhh blaaaaaaaaaghhhhhh. Ahhh blaaaaaaaaaghhhh. In between heaves, I felt the janitor’s mop brush up against the backs of my sandals. When you are puking your brains out, all you want is privacy and a clean toilet to lean on. I had neither.
Once I finished donating my lunch (and its precious protein that my body hadn’t yet digested) to the shopping mall’s septic system, I washed my face and wobbled over to a bench outside. With my head leaned up against a wall and sweat dripping in a steady trickle from my face, I tried to figure out what made me sick. I have been cleaning all my water, trying to avoid dodgy food vendors, washing my hands. I couldn’t figure out what caused the nausea. Luckily, I was close to a pharmacy and once I felt well enough to stand, I made my way up to the pharmacist.
“I have a horrible stomach pain,” I said. “And my head hurts, too. Do you have some sort of antibiotic?”
The pharmacist spread out four different medicines before me (all would have required prescriptions in the U.S.) and told me how much they cost, how to take them, and what they were for. I bought a five day cycle of Cipro for the equivalent of $5 U.S.
I had been planning on staying in my first motel of the trip that night, but the guesthouse/motel district in town was too far away for me to cycle or walk to in my condition. I felt dizzy when I stood and needed to lean on the bike to walk. I realized I had to find a safe place close by to set up the tent so I could sleep off whatever was twisting my insides.
One hundred yards from the pharmacy I spotted a Catholic missions building. I pushed my bike up to the gate, leaned on it, and rang the doorbell. A short, pudgy man with a groomed mustache and a cowboy hat came to the gate to greet me.
“Sir, I’m very sick and I need a safe place to rest for a little while. I have a tent. Can I set it up on the grass there?” I asked and pointed to the manicured lawn just beyond the gate.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m the only one working right now. My boss isn’t here. When he gets back, you can come in, but not until then.” Pause. Smile. “Sorry.”
“Oh.”
“But there is a church close by. It’s called Molema Church and it’s just at the end of this street on the right. Try there.”
I thanked the man and made my way to the other church. When I walked into the church office, a tall man with a thick head of dark brown hair and a pleasant smile greeted me. His name was Wily. He told me to relax and showed me a nice grassy area in the church courtyard where I could lay out my tent and rest.
“You can rest here until 9:00 p.m. We are having a dance party at the church tonight and it will end at nine. After that, I’ll take you back to my neighbor’s house—she has a small yard and you can set your tent up there. Sorry, you can’t stay at the church alone tonight though.”
I thanked Wily a million times and set up my tent.
Just as the sun was going down, just as I was about to drift off to the restless yet somewhat satisfying sleep that comes with sickness, I felt my bones rattle. Booooom. Ba boooom ba booooooom. Ba booooom ba boooooooooooom. Some of the loudest, deepest bass notes I have ever heard in my life rung out through the air in quick succession and literally shook me wide awake.
Reggaeton.
For four straight hours, the church DJ played nothing but reggaeton. I couldn’t believe it. What were the odds that the one night of the entire trip in which I most needed rest I set up camp next to a reggaeton dance party, one being held at a church, no less. I put in my ear plugs and tossed and turned for hours.
The nausea returned twice during my rest. Because I was too weak to even sit up properly (trying to make it to a bathroom didn’t even cross my mind—it just wasn’t an option), I simply unzipped the door of the tent and watered the courtyard grass with a gray, warm, murky fertilizer, the likes of which the lawn had probably never seen before. At 9:00 p.m., Wily came out to my tent.
“Everyone is having a good time. The DJ agreed to stay for one more hour. At 10:00 p.m. I will come and get you?”
“OK,” I moaned.
When the party ended and Wily cleaned up, I followed him and his family back to their house. Dodging trash and potholes, I rode through down town Escuintla past packed bars, street vendors closing up shop for the night, couples holding hands, and drunks passed out on the sidewalk. I fought to avoid getting sick as the bike vibrated over sections of washboard asphalt.
After 15 minutes, we pulled into the gated community where Wily and his family lived. Three guards at the gate, all sporting sawed off shotguns, greeted Wily by name.
Above: My tent in Wily’s neighbor’s front yard
I slept long and hard. When I awoke, the nausea had dissipated enough for me to pack my things, eat breakfast with Wily, and hit the road.
Above: Wily, his neighbor, his family, me, the bike. Morning after.
