Bring Us Nachos

We are here! Its beginning of our second day in Cuzco. Travel from Atlanta to Lima was painless. We spent the night at Hotel Kamana in the central district. To demonstrate how hard the bed was Nancy leaped on it while I shot a video; unfortunately the bed was even harder than we anticipated and she yelped when her head met the mattress. We left Lima (the city that smells like old shrimp) in the morning. Mike and Helen picked us up at the airport and we went straight to the Vance’s awesome apartment. I was doing fine but Nancy was already feeling the altitude. From there we went to the Plaza De Armas and had a great lunch of classical Peruvian dishes. I can tell I will like the food here, but I soon found out that I am not the “Andrew Zimmern” type.

After lunch we walked to the market and Nancy stopped at the pharmacy to pick up a pill for her developing headache. She asked for ibuprofen and unbeknownst to us they gave her the same pills that we were all ready taking for preventing altitude sickness. After visiting the market it really hit me that we are in that we are in a foreign country. I thought I was brave but there was no way I was eating the charqui (original word for jerky) as it looks like deloused road kill, and I don’t see myself settling down for a plate of half dried cow face. Nancy’s headache got worse as the combination of altitude and a yet undiagnosed overdose worsened so we went back to the Vance’s. By the time we were about to start dinner Nancy was in bed crying from the pain of her worsening symptoms. Megan helped us call a doctor from the yellow pages that specializes in altitude sickness. It was so weird to hear her Spanish with a perfect accent flowing so smoothly. The doctor was here in 15 minutes. Take that American health care system!! The doctor took one look at Nancy’s meds and convinced her to get a shot of pain killer in her butt. It only cost $80 for a house call. I stayed with Nancy for 40 minutes till she passed out. After a good nights sleep everything is back to normal and Nancy is doing fine and downing lots of electrolytes.