Mucho Mejor

Buenas So I'm back to the trip. My last blog I was just returning to Peru from the states which was indeed an interesting transition. I had to get my senses aware and focus on my Spanish. Right away at the airport I start dealing with people trying to sway me to go to one hostel or another and of course saying some are closed or whatever. It's always some sort of scam, so it seems. Anyways a day into the return and I woke up from a long night of sleep with a sore throat. I ate a little breakfast, was thinking of getting out to do something but decided to lay down first and that turned into sleeping another 8 hours after the 9 hours of sleep at night. Woke up freezing cold, though thoroughly bundled up, with a fever, headache so bad it was painful to open my eyes and really tired. I stayed in bed all night in & out of really strange sleep with what seem like hallucinate-like dreaming. The next day I woke up the same, too tired to get out of bed and no energy to go down stairs to make some food. Oh and where was I? I was at a house of a friend who happened to be out of town. It's like a real world house, 10 people from all over the world live there studying at a university. And the ones that were around were up all night with loud music & partying like no tomorrow. I guess everyone thought I was gone because nobody saw me. I was in a room of a guy who was out of town, on an airmattress and not having fun. I guess these are the times when it'd be nice to be home or somewhere where someone might help me out with some soup or something. The second day into this sickness I really started to worry about another case of Meningitis or even Swine Flu. Swine flu info is all over when you're flying. My symptoms did remind me of Meningitis & I started to get a worried but I didn't really have the energy to get out and figure out the hospital thing plus I wanted to see if I could just kick it myself. So I laid around for days. Another thing happened, twice in this week 2 different students from the house got robbed around the corner. The second time was after I was there and I already had my set of spare keys. Well while I was down, the owner of the house changed the outside lock because the girl lost her keys when getting robbed. So when I finally did try to go out to get some orange juice, I didn't even have a key to get out. So basically I was locked in & nobody knew I was there, I was sort of wallowing away in my room. Finally I saw the maid & she helped me with a new key so I could go to the Pharmacy and to the store. I had met this older guy, who is originally from the states but lives here, up in Northern Peru before I left on my trip home & he had said he could help me investigate some things I was thinking about in Lima so I finally called him back. He & his wife came over, picked me up & took me out for some food...their treat. Which was nice, they were helpful and got me my first meal in a few days. They also went into to the place my car was parked and haggled for a lower price, which was funny since it was only 2.50 per day. Oh yea, my car was there intact with everything in it. I was able to get there & see that before I fell down sick for a few days. That was a nice relief, I was a little worried about my car while away. So I finally got up the energy to leave the house, I couldn't take all the crazy loud partying all night and I especially couldn't handle stereotype fitting LOUD annoying Americans in the house. The people from the other countries were telling me they didn't understand, this is something that people abroad tend to say about people from the states - we're really loud. And sure enough there was a guy who was loud day & night. Anyway I got myself up, left the house and went to check into a hostel in MiraFlores until I was fully on my feet. Now I'm back to feeling much much better and finally got myself active again. The couple that I spoke of earlier has a son who surfs so I went exploring with him & his friend and they showed me some pretty solid surf spots. Not the most amazing scenery; the beaches near Miraflores are gloomy, cold, and seemed to be littered with dead seagulls & a few dead seals but the surf was really good & it felt good to do something. It's been nice to have the local family be nice to me, have me over for a couple of meals & to take me around to run some errands I needed to do. They've been really helpful & generous with their time. Now that I'm about back to 110%, it's time for me to get out of the city, get back on the road & continue the journey.