ODO: 352,162
Morning in the dome is a 270 degree view of mountains. Solid start to the day. After a quick, homemade breakfast, we’re off to see an attraction on our Cusco tourist ticket: Chinchero. It’s a set of ruins in a town known for keeping historic textile traditions alive. Compared to what we’ve already seen, this is medium impressive, with only some small scale Inca stone work, but lots of terracing. We buy some souvenirs from a shop we can only take a couple steps into because it feels like we will fall thru the floor, before continuing back to Cusco. The plan was to see three more attractions on our ticket (it’s got 16 attractions to see over ten days! Gotta catch em all!), but we’re really feeling the altitude today. Maybe we’re de-acclimating? Anyways, we cut the day short, return to the campground, and go to bed early.
And we sleep late…what’s happening to us? Today is Thanksgiving and we have no plans whatsoever. We find a hostel in town offering a Thanksgiving meal, but it doesn’t start until 8pm, and we’re not sure we’ll make it till then. We go about our morning, doing some chores and making some friends in the campground, a recommendation from Alex and Meg’s time in Baja. Trying to re-acclimate to the altitude, we head into town for a slow wander.
We enjoyed our dinner pizza from a few days ago so much, we get another for lunch today. Berne has Peru’s official drink, a pisco sour with his lunch (this will be important later… foreshadowing). After lunch, we randomly happen across a restaurant serving a full, traditional American Thanksgiving dinner starting at 5pm! We are thrilled! We make a reservation and walk in circles until dinner time.
It’s not exactly a traditional thanksgiving dinner, but it’s close enough: turkey, green beans, sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, no stuffing or cranberry sauce, but pumpkin pie at the end. Full, and ready for another early night, we head back to the campground just in time for Berne’s tummy to start grumbling. Berne is prone to regular upset tummy, so we pay no attention to it at all.
We sleep late again. Seriously, what is going on?! Today is the big finale of our scheduled events: two nights in the very fancy JW Marriott in Cusco. This is our 2-years-on-the-road-anniversary-celebration-trip-within-a-trip. Berne’s tummy is still upset. While not fully normal for him to still feel unwell, this is not completely abnormal either, so we ignore it while we pack for our two fancy nights. And they are FANCY! The hotel is a converted Spanish convent that, like many Spanish buildings in Cusco, was built on top of Inca ruins. They upgrade us from a street view room, to a one bedroom suite with a courtyard view. We settle in and immediately order room service, soaking up every second of our luxury. At 6:00pm we meet in the lobby for the free tour of the hotel, showcasing the Inca and pre-Inca walls that are still visible in the lower levels of the hotel. Our room comes with free drinks at the hotel bar, which we enjoy before a delicious dinner in the hotel restaurant.
Today is the day…Berne is officially sick. He barley makes it to breakfast, barely eats, and returns almost immediately to bed. Not what we had planned for this weekend. We spend the morning monitoring the situation, but there is no sign of improvement. At his insistence, KoKo heads out to see the local museums on the tourist ticket. She hits three of four: contemporary art, pop art, and historical. The fourth museum is closed. She makes an additional stop at a weaving center before hustling back to the hotel. Her entire adventure took less than two hours, but in that time Berne has gone downhill. This is not looking good. We originally thought this might be an altitude issue, except this JW pumps extra oxygen into the rooms to help guests acclimate (so fancy!!), which doesn’t seem to be having any effect on Berne whatsoever.
This morning Berne can’t make it to breakfast. It’s time for a first for us on this trip: see a foreign doctor. Once again, JW to the rescue. They have a doctor on call who does room visits. At this point, Berne hasn’t eaten anything for 24 hours and is pretty dehydrated from being sick. The doctor lets us know one of the most common ways tourists get salmonella, yup, she says Berne has salmonella, is from the egg foam bartenders like to put on top of pisco sours. She leaves us with a couple of different prescriptions, and tells us to come to the clinic if we feel like we need more help.
Berne isn’t well enough to leave the hotel yet, and this is our final day. We use our store of points to book an additional night in a less fancy room, and the hotel staff help us relocate. Once we’re resettled, and Berne has his first does of antibiotics, we try a short outing to the twelve angled stone. This proves to be one of the coolest spots in all of Cusco. Yes, there is a stone with twelve angles, which is amazing, but the coolest part is the missing stones. Their absence lets us see the hidden surfaces of Inca construction. The small lips the hold everything in place are on full display. The smoothness between the stones is incredible. Unfortunately, this 2 block outing has drained Berne, so we return him to the hotel where he can sleep it off for the rest of the day.
After three rounds of his antibiotics in about 24 hours, Berne is not feeling any different. We check in with the doctor to see if this is normal, and she advises us to come to the clinic. Shit. We decide to wait until 10am before leaving, but by the time 10am rolls around Berne is starting to feel better (or he’s more terrified of going to a foreign hospital than he feels bad). We decide to wait until noon, and once again, he is feeling better! Instead of going to the clinic, we double down on liquids, and book our room for another night, hoping one more good sleep will be enough.
Berne is “much” better this morning. He is still very pale, and shaky, and down 15lbs, but he is able to go downstairs and eat some breakfast, and take a shower. We still use every single second of our late check out before returning to the campground, giving Berne as much rest in controlled conditions as possible. Back at the campground, our low tire is really low, making the truck list to the driver side. After filling it up, Berne gets back into bed, and starts this next, less intense, less painful, less dehydrating phase of salmonella.
