5.13.2008

Hopefully not Chagas!

I reread what I wrote the other day, and realized that I was all over the place! Misspellings, wrong tenses, missing words, the works. Very unlike me. I think I´m just a bit flustered by the language, and the keyboard. Ohhhh the keyboard. It took me days before I could log onto this Blogger site, because I couldn´t figure out how to make the @ symbol! If you hold Shift and number 2 here, you get a " mark.

Well, turns out - after asking around - that you either can hold down Cntl, Alt, and the numbers 6 and 4....... or you can use the Alt Grande key - yes, who knew! - and hit number 2. Rrrrrrright. Insider spanish keyboard secrets! And this varies from keyboard to keyboard. Some keyboards it´s Cntl-Alt-6-4, some keyboards it´s Cntl-Alt-2, some keyboards it doesn´t work at all. And apparently the Shift key is worthless aside from making capital letters.

Anyway, yesterday was chore day. I went to the camera store -- como se dice -- sand in the camera lens?!? No worko? Need fixo! Si?

Dammit this language barrier is killing me.

Finally, between fragmented words and grunts and points and ummms and hand signals - the woman summoned another man from the back. I showed him - no worko - lens error, restart camera - and he agreed to take it apart (or, most likely unscrew it, take the cover off, blow a few times and reattach) for the low low price of 120 Soles. If you look up Gringo in the dictionary, there is a picture of me - with various Peruvians pointing and giggling at me while emptying my pockets! Oh well, 40 or 50 bucks is better than a new camera.

Moving on - to el medico! He is an english speaking medico - thank the good lord. I finally met up with him after being told to come back later in the day. We go into his office, he asks what seems to be the problem. I show him my mangled legs, full of bites and blotches, swollen like telephone poles. He shines a light on them, then on my bitten arms, then back on my legs.

He decides the bites on the arm are fleas or sand flies. The bites on my legs he diagnoses as bites from the Chagas bug. He shows me pictures of the bug on his computer, along with pictures of the Chagas bug bites on another person, which looked very similar to mine. Mine started out looking like mosquito bites, but have since flattened out and expanded in diameter, and changed color. They´re currently starring as ugly red splotches.

So, he recommends some anti-inflammatory pills, and a shot - to accelerate the decrease in swelling. Apparently the shot works faster than the pills.

So he gets the needle out, loads it up, comes over -- I roll up my sleeve and tense up -- and he smiles and says ´oh, no. not arm. the butt.´
Great! So I drop my drawers and off we go. Man that does not feel good.

Anyway, I´ve been reading more about the CHagas bug, it´s actually a disease the bug gives you - and there doesn´t seem to be a cure. So, I´m going to back to him this afternoon to make sure he said Chagas bug. Because if he did, I think that´s a problem. Long term effects.

Chagas bugs aside, everything else is pretty good. I´m staying in a very nice hostel, reminds me of Europe. Actually Arequipa reminds me of a European town. Lotsa noise and traffico, but also lots of interesting buildings and cathedrals and sunlit alleyways. Fun to walk around and take in the sights. People watch, sit in the plaza and soak it all in.

There aren´t many other people at my hostel, so it´s nice and quiet. I had a nice sunlit breakfast this morning of bread and jam and coca tea. Not sure if you´re supposed to feel high from coca tea (since it´s made from coca leaves, which they use to make cocaine) but it tastes good.

I went white-water-rafting today. It was amazing, although we got stuck on about 14 different rocks. I think they may have pulled our guide from the local farmer´s field.
No, he was nice. And somewhat knowledgeable. It was just a difficult river with lots of rocks and obstacles. But very fun. There were snow-capped mountains in the background (where the melted water flows from to make el rapids), I kept looking back up the river rapids and admiring the cascading water with the mountains towering in the background. It was mesmerizing.

Anyway, I gotta run and book a two day trip to colca canyon for tomorrow. Apparently it´s deeper than the grand canyon, and there´s also a place you stop where condors swoop over your head, while you - being the tourist that you are - stand there and snap 87 pictures of them, while almost forgetting to soak in the moment. Ah, the life of a tourist.

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