For Better and For Worse

A good friend of mine told me today that she gets upset because people never write on Facebook or in their blogs about the bad times.  Generally, it's only pictures on Facebook of smiles and beautiful sunsets.  So, tonight, I am writing because this is one of those bad times.  

Not that it's all bad.  I am in a beautiful place... still in Mancora in Peru.  The place I am staying, while ridden with mosquitos, is a beautiful little hippy place.  I'll write all about the last three days in the morning.  But for now, I am writing because I am sick.  And it hurts.  

I have been doing the opposite of being careful with what I eat down here.  I have been careless, tempting fate every chance I get.  Ceviche of all varieties, fruits out of the mercado, juices made from small town water - you name it.  And somewhere along the way over the past couple of days, I found something that is haunting me.  It started yesterday with bad stomach cramps.  This morning, it turned to diarrhea and nausea.  Then this afternoon, the fever hit.  Accompanied by cold sweats and serious body aches, it has pretty much knocked me down.  Faced this morning with the question of going north or south on a bus, I now have no option.  

So my body hurts.  Everywhere.  If it weren't for the stomach cramps, it would feel like the onset of dengue.  But I know it's just the fever causing the pain, and the fever is surely related to whatever is happening in my stomach.  In a way, this buys me some time alone.  I've been spending the last three days with a very cool new friend, who took off for Lima tonight, and haven't spent any time with myself.  And so, like the yellow fever vaccination, this illness allows me to see an opportunity at the same time it forces me into it.    

And so I will lay here tonight, perhaps blog if I can not sleep, but likely stare at the swarm of mosquitos above me looking for any opportunity at exposed skin, thinking about which way the bus might take me tomorrow.  Torn between north and south, solo or with a friend.  Tonight, though, as usual, the decision was was in the hands of the universe, not mine.