La gripa
PerúWas it those gross guatitas that lady served me last night in her kitchen with a dirt floor? Was it because I didn’t have a proper breakfast this morning? Was it the dehydration I subjected myself to yesterday, crossing that vast plateau without any water?
It was something. I could barely cycle uphill and had to keep taking breaks, just sitting on the side of the road, wishing I’d brought more food and water. I had previously thought, if I ever fell ill while biking, I might struggle to decide whether to keep riding, in the name of biking every inch, or to seek help. Easy decision. For the first time in four months, I didn’t trust my body to take me where I needed to go. Why force my bike up a mountain? If I could figure out a way to get to Huancavelica without having to pedal anymore, I would do it in a second.
Was it the silty water I drank from that lake a few days ago? Was it because I didn’t wash the stove soot off my hands before I cut those vegetables? Was it because I didn’t swirl my Steripen enough when I purified my water?
As I pulled into a concentration of shacks too small and filthy to merit a name on a map, I heard honks. A collectivo! I swallowed my snot and sprinted down the street, just in time to wave the driver down.
“¿Para Huancavelica?”
“Si, caballero.”
He strapped my bicycle onto the van’s roof with bungee cords and I collapsed inside onto furry leopard-print seats. Classic bizarro peruano.
Was it the cold air of the peruano puna? Or the lack of air at 15,000 feet? Was it the repeated nights of camping? Or germs from a dirty blanket in a hospedaje?
I would have to rest in Huancavelica a few days. I would have to resort to taking a collectivo to Ayacucho to catch my flight back to the US. I would have to spend too much of my precious time with Liz, her family, and her friends, lying in bed, recovering. I would have to leave the party early at both of the weddings I attended. I would have to take an overnight bus back from Ayacucho to Huancavelica to get my bike, and I would have to restart my schedule another three days behind.
What was it? Was there something I could have done to not catch la gripa?
People do everything to avoid la gripa in countries like Perú. They brush their teeth with bottled water. They eschew all raw vegetables from their diet. They avoid street food. They probably have a whole other host of tricks I’m not aware of.
La gripa was bound to catch up to me at some point, with the exertion and exposure that I’m putting my body through. Four months of travelling in Latin America without it was a pretty good run. I’ll continue brushing my teeth with tap water, eating vegetables, and enjoying street cart delicacies. I’ll keep on purifying lake water when I need to drink, cycling in the cold air, sleeping on the ground, and taking what hospedajes and dinner options are available to me. I’ll probably get la gripa again. It won’t be fun. But I’d probably get sick once every four months while sitting on my couch at home, too. So I won’t worry about what caused la gripa.
