Travel, Photography, Life.
Dan Perry
Dan created this blog to document his South America trip, which covered every country on the continent and lasted over two years. He currently lives in Madison, WI.
Homepage: http://www.trekkerglobe.com
Posts by Dan Perry
Resting
May 22nd
April 8-9, 2008
Days 865-866
Last night was rough again. This time, nausea was the side effect that got me. I had to fight off the urge to throw up constantly. It was like I was drunk and had to stumble around to get anywhere. I don’t know if another side effect of the pills was sentimentality, but that was how I felt as I laid in bed. Being sick and alone is no fun, and at that moment, all I wanted was to be back at home. I decided then and there that I had to go back as soon as possible. I had no desire to keep traveling.
When I started to feel a little better, I managed to get out to a park called Semuc Champey. It was a colorful place in the forest filled with natural swimming pools, but I didn’t really get to enjoy it due to a lack of energy. There were lots of caves in the area as well, but I didn’t dare go inside in my condition. I managed to eat a salad at one point, but puked it up a few minutes later. My appetite was down to zero.
Once I felt well enough, I left town on the long bus trip to a city called Flores, where I will hopefully be able to see a doctor.
Is This For Real?
May 22nd
April 7, 2008
Day 864
I went home because of my illness. Everyone in my family got together for a big party, and they were all sleeping in the house together. In the middle of the night, a huge storm came. I went outside to see a huge flash of lightning, fading away into dozens of bright spots all over the sky. The glow from the lightning was so intense, it was as if dawn were approaching.
Things started to get weird after that. My mom ran outside and told us we’d lost our phone and Internet connections. The whole house started shaking. The sky got real bright again and two kids dressed as cartoon characters rode past us on bicycles waving in unison like parade queens. Techno music started mysteriously playing upstairs, and when I asked my brother if it was his, he put out his hand as if to indicate that he wouldn’t listen to that crap. My dad said it was probably just a ghost like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Suddenly, moaning voices filled the air as the storm rose up again. The whole house began violently shaking. Afraid the house would collapse, I yelled for everybody to get outside, but they didn’t listen because they were under a spell. Once outside, I turned to see the two ghostly looking kids on bicycles pass me again, still waving away.
My whole knowledge of the universe was turned around. There was no way any of this could be happening, and suddenly I realized it must just be a dream. I pinched my arm as hard as I could, but nothing happened. I was stuck in this strange world. When the sun finally came up, I looked outside to see a huge government helicopter with Angel written on the back. My mom said it must have been them that did it. They disabled our communications so we couldn’t call for help. Then people showed up from nowhere wearing Halloween costumes and started dancing and everything was back to normal. Another hellish night was over.
All of a sudden I woke up. I sat up but was disoriented. Finally I figured out that I was still in my tent in Guatemala and the whole thing about going home was all just a dream. Then I remembered the malaria pills. One of their side effects was bad dreams, but this was no ordinary dream. It felt exactly like reality. I remembered the cockroaches from last night and thought that might be a dream too. No such luck, the holes were still there. Still, what if I were still in a larger dream? Could the cockroaches be part of that dream? What about the last two and a half years of my life? Could they all have been a huge malaria-induced dream as well? I was expecting to wake up and find myself still in my office, looking at my watch to see how long until I turned sixty-five. I had no idea what was real and what wasn’t anymore.
Figuring Out the Cause
May 22nd
April 6, 2008
Day 863
I had a horrible night last night. It was more rolling and shaking and waiting for death to approach. Tina brought me a banana and some yogurt, but I couldn’t eat. I had the yogurt in the morning, but it took half an hour to get it all down. I couldn’t even touch the banana so I put it in the tent to keep the bugs off it.
I went to the hospital, but the lady working there obviously had no idea what she was talking about. She quickly threw some pills my way when I described my symptoms, but when I asked if I could have malaria, she was very dismissive in telling me that there was no way. She didn’t even have the capability to give me a simple blood test. I was eight hours from the nearest city and didn’t feel like sitting on a bus that long to get a diagnosis.
Luckily all of the tourists I talked to at the hostel seemed to know all about malaria and dengue. They all figured I had one or the other, but since there was no treatment for dengue, I should take the malaria medication as it wouldn’t hurt me in the long run if I didn’t actually have malaria. My judgment wasn’t the greatest, but I was in no position to argue, so I took the pills.
I slept most of the day, but the fever came back once more in the early afternoon. By late afternoon, I was finally feeling better. I still had the headache, but at least I wasn’t shaking anymore. I was only awake a few hours all day, but I was already ready for bed by 9:00.
When I went to open my tent, I saw a small hole in the wall that looked new. Then I noticed a much bigger hole next to it. At first I thought someone had robbed me. I glanced inside and didn’t immediately notice anything missing. Then I opened the door and figured out the problem: Dozens of cockroaches were crawling all over the banana I had left inside. The platform I had been camping on must have been infested with them, and they must have chewed through my tent to get inside. I didn’t even know they could do that. My tent was ruined. I spent half an hour killing the cockroaches and slept with my flashlight on the rest of the night to keep them from coming back.
The Fever Continues
May 22nd
April 5, 2008
Day 862
I could barely walk the half block to the pharmacy this morning. I told the pharmacist about my symptoms and she gave me some sort of fever medication. It somewhat helped but made me extremely drowsy. Somehow I managed to carry my backpack to the bus, but I felt like the walking dead along the way.
I got a bus to Coban, but there were many delays due to road construction. The Guatemalans’ brilliant plan when repaving a road is to shut the entire thing down for three hours in the middle of the day and make any unlucky traffic that may try to cross that stretch of road wait. The concept of shutting down only one lane at a time has not yet made it as far as Guatemala.
When I finally got to Coban, I finally jumped on one more bus, my eighth bus in two days, to Lanquin. I was sleeping most of the way, but the fever came back strong in the afternoon and I began shaking and having severe aches again. I felt myself sinking, like my head was spinning and filling with clouds. Death would have been a welcome invitation at that point.
In Lanquin, I stayed at a beautiful compound of cabins on a river. There were no rooms available, so somehow I dragged out my tent and camped under a thatched roof. It was actually way better than being in a room because of the gentle breeze and extra space that doesn’t exist in a dorm. I figured I was finally in a good place to ride out the fever.
When I was shaking and moaning in a chair later, I saw a German girl named Tina who I had originally met in Managua a few weeks ago. She didn’t even recognize me I looked so bad. For the first time, I thought that maybe I had either malaria or dengue fever. I was on Utila ten days ago, which is known to have malaria, but I was taking my malaria medication at the time. Still, taking the medication in no way guarantees that you won’t get the disease if you get a persistent strain. Some people told me there was a hospital I could go to tomorrow and get tested to find out for sure what it was.
The Sudden Illness
May 22nd
April 4, 2008
Day 861
I got a boat across Lago Atitlan today, and two guys immediately tried talking me into taking a shuttle once I got to the other side. In Guatemala, your only options are to take the chicken buses, which are old American school buses that the locals ride, or shuttles, which are small expensive buses that only tourists ride. Taking the shuttle would mean having to go all the way back to the capital and it would take two days to get to Coban, but looking at the map, I saw that there was a more direct route. The guys trying to sell me a ticket told me I’d have to go to the coast and back, but the map made it obvious they were lying. These guys will tell you the world is flat if it means getting your business.
Normally I don’t mind the chicken buses and don’t understand what the fuss is all about. However, today was one of those days I wished I had taken the shuttle. I ended up having to take six buses in all because each one only went to the next little town. For that reason, I think Guatemala has the worst public transportation infrastructure out of any country I’ve ever visited (other than the US). I ended up in a tiny town called Upsantan near dark on the last bus of the day. I got a room for the night and ate a delicious taco dinner, not knowing that it would be my last full meal for the next several days.
When I got back to my hotel, I came down with a sudden fever. I alternated between being extremely hot and cold and was shaking uncontrollably. My whole body ached, but my head was the worst as it felt like my eyeballs were popping out of my skull. I didn’t have diarrhea or vomiting so I didn’t think I had food poisoning. That was good because I didn’t even have enough energy to make it to the bathroom in case of an emergency. I continued sleeplessly rolling around in my bed all night, alternating between shivering and sweating, and constantly waiting for the mercy of dawn so I could figure out what was wrong with me.
A Mixture Of Hippies and Indigenous People
May 22nd
April 1-3, 2008
Days 858-860
My next stop was Lago Atitlan, a large lake in southern Guatemala surrounded by volcanoes. I stopped in a little town called San Pedro la Laguna, which was a mixture of local indigenous people and hippies trying to sell me drugs wherever I walked. The volcanoes were nice and were begging to be climbed, but unfortunately, frequent robberies and even the occasional murder made me decide to give them a miss. I did end up walking to some of the tiny villages on the lake, and they were nice because the locals didn’t see many tourists and were very curious about me. However, it was a little hard to communicate with them because so few of them spoke Spanish. Still, it was a great little town to hang out in for a few days.
The photo album for this entry is here.
More Colonialness
May 22nd
March 30-31, 2008
Days 856-857
I had another long ride into Guatemala today. It was my sixth country in Central America and my fifth in the month of March. I was getting worn down from moving too fast, but the Central American countries simply didn’t impress me as much as anywhere in South America.
I went right through the capital of Guatemala City as it’s yet another Central American capital to be avoided, and headed straight to Antigua. It was a colorful and nice colonial city in a great natural setting being flanked on all sides by volcanoes. The problems with Antigua were that it was full of tourists, it was very expensive for what is supposedly a poor country, most of the locals weren’t indigenous as I had heard they were, and there wasn’t much to do in the city but sit around all day and drink all night. One day was enough for me as I decided to keep on moving.
The photo album for this entry is here.
Copan Ruins and Town
May 22nd
March 28-29, 2008
Days 854-855
It was a long day of boring logistics getting to Copan Ruinas that included a ferry back to the mainland and a series of buses. The name of the town implied that it was the site of some ruins, but that wasn’t strictly true. It was actually a pleasant, small place near the border with Guatemala with lots of actual living people.
The ruins after which the town was named were only a short walk away. People began inhabiting the site at least as far back as 1200 BC, and at the height of its existence, Copan supported about 20,000 people. Eventually, the population got out of control, cultural resources were strained, and people started starving. By 1200 AD the environment had been damaged so badly the last of the remaining farmers had to abandon the site and it was reclaimed by the jungle. It all sounded strangely familiar, but unfortunately our present day civilization can’t simply get up and abandon the whole planet.
The ruins had a few pyramids and large buildings, but the most impressive part was the statues depicting Copan’s past kings. They were scattered throughout the central courtyard, and some of them still even had the original paint. I was quite impressed by the hieroglyphic-like stories that were told by Copan’s scholars. I had gotten ruined out in South America, but my first set of ruins in Central America have put me back on track.
Grease Me Up And Wake Me When the Revolution Comes
May 22nd
March 22-27, 2008
Day 848-853
Rumor had it the earliest ferry left to one of the Bay Islands at 9:00, but to which island was unclear. Truth be told, I was skeptical there even would be a ferry today because it was Easter weekend. But the only way to find out was to get up early and head over to the dock. Sonia and Ivan got their ticket to Roatan, which indeed did leave at 9:00, but I wanted to go to Utila, and nobody seemed to know what was going on with it. The ferry was sitting in the dock, and when Sonia talked to the captain, she found out that it had already dropped off a load of passengers from the island and was about to return empty to pick up another load. I ran over to it and jumped on board just as it was pulling away. They let me ride out to Utila as the only passenger on the whole ship, a strange situation indeed. The mass exodus from the island meant that I was able to find a place to sleep right away, so I guess the divine intervention of El Salvador worked out for the best.
The first thing I noticed when I got to the island was that the locals were speaking English to each other. It was a Caribbean dialect that was hard to understand (they say mon and riiight a lot), but delightful nonetheless. It had been over a year since I had been to an English-speaking place.
The Bay Islands are known for their cheap diving, to the point where many people end up staying for several months learning how to be a divemaster (a kind of an underwater tour guide) or an instructor. I signed up for some fun dives on Easter Sunday. A big group of us checked out the reef (the second largest in the world), including a wall that went thirty meters (100 feet) deep. Later, we went to a private beach for a barbecue, volleyball, and an underwater Easter egg hunt where the prize for each egg found was a bottle of beer. I didn’t see anything life-changing on my dives, and I learned that overfishing had badly damaged the ecosystem around the island, but it was still fun getting back into the water.
Later I met a family from Alaska traveling together. Porsha did various things for a living, including playing in two bands and selling fruit smoothies at the farmer’s market. One of the first things she was going to do when she got home was go caribou hunting with her brother Garrison and mother Katie. Porsha liked to tell me that if you didn’t learn how to be self-sufficient by hunting and growing your own vegetables, you weren’t going to survive in the future. She also told me that the US had more or less become a police state in the time I’d been gone. It all seemed far-fetched, but it also had an eerie ring of truth to it.
Another guy hanging out with us was Dave. Dave also sells fruit smoothies at the local farmer’s market. He claimed that he only works four months per year, and only one day per week during those four months. That’s been his only job for the last twenty years. I think I need to consider a career change when I get home.
The worst thing about the island was the sand flies. The first night I got bitten a lot, but then I learned that if you grease yourself up with baby oil, they can’t piss directly onto your skin. The whole island looked like a big Mr. Universe pageant, what with all the athletic, deeply tanned people walking around in their swimming suits and covered with baby oil.
The other bad thing was the weather. Most days were cloudy with rough water, and the ferry service and even some of the dive boats became unreliable. A local rasta told me that around Easter it was always guaranteed to be hot and sunny, but the last few years have been totally unpredictable because of global climate change. So we’ve taken away the fish and the sunny weather, but at least there was still some coral. For a little while, anyway.
The photo album for this entry is here.
The Real Meaning Of Culture Shock
May 22nd
March 21, 2008
Day 847
The Bay Islands consist of three islands: Utila, Roatan, and some other island I can’t remember, but that’s not important. The backpackers generally stick with Utila, and those with a bit more money go to Roatan. Sonia had been living in Roatan for the last year, and Ivan was going with her. As for me, I didn’t much care which island I went to as long as I got there. I was supposed to be there a week earlier, but didn’t make it because all the buses were sold out for the pending Easter week holiday, remember.
It turned out my decision had already been made for me. Sonia called the ferry company this morning, but there were none because it was Good Friday. Same deal with flights. Yesterday the water had been too rough for the ferry to make it, so that made two days with nobody coming from or going to the islands. That meant we had to stick around town with nothing to do because nothing was open due to the aforementioned holiday. It also meant tomorrow would be a long and hectic day as we struggled to get on the ferry, if it even left at all.
I think I’ve found the true meaning of culture shock in the last few months. Most people say it’s something that happens right when you get to a new culture, and it goes away shortly thereafter as you make lifestyle adjustments. I think culture shock is more like being in a relationship. The little character flaws your partner has don’t bother you at first. Maybe they even make that person more attractive. But over a period of months or years of being with the same person, those flaws work their way into your head and won’t come back out again until you either leave that person or blow up in their face. Then when you look back at the situation years later, you find that time has its way of only making you remember the positive stuff and you’re not even sure why you got so mad in the first place.
Culture shock for me has come in the form of all these damned holidays. These people will find any excuse to throw a party, and it disrupts the entire transportation infrastructure. There are no boats, no flights, and the few buses that still run become a deathmatch to embark. Hotels are all full and restaurants are all closed. There’s nothing to do but sit around with your thumb up your ass and wait for it all to end. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were only a few days per year, but it’s nearly the end of March and I swear there’s only been a few weeks so far this year without any holidays. And so today I walked around with the Colombian and the Spaniard with a look of accepted defeat on my face, like an old man who suddenly gives in to his oncoming incontinence. I had found my happy place.