I'M AT: El Arcano, a friendly place in Barrio San Blas run by a sweet young girl, her junky brother, and her laughing pa, Irwin, who gently changed the sheets of my bed following an accident with a loose-capped water bottle - Irwin, I SWEAR it was only water.
So we went overnight from Arequipa to Cuzco on a class coach of some luxuries, Cial Tours, a leaping marlin sprayed under the windows. Evening meal of jelly, a sweet strawberry sandwich and hot sugary coffee. And as we sat there, onto the bus walked 30 Peruvian schoolgirls, giggling at the gringos.
By this time, as I was visiting the toilet ten times a day and leaving only liquids, I'd decided to find out for sure if I was dying from some intestinal nightmare, so taxied to Clinica Pardo, and, having paid $20 and been told to wait 20 minutes, saw my bewigged Doctor two hours later, he had me shit into a small transparent cup, and told me to wait another three quarters of an hour when the laboratory would have my results. Conscious of time, I half-ran back to the Plaza de Armas where, in the Cross Keys Britpub, I met Mark, who'd found Kata and Ela, we had a water and a quick chat, and I scanned the walls for Palace shirts (none). And we made rough plans for the next couple of days, before a taxi took me back to the clinic.
A pink lab slip later, I walked out with my diagnosis: giardia. Bought huge pills of death, which I took straight away, to kill the shell-dwelling beasts. And was told not to drink for three days whilst on the other medication, big orange capsules. I looked at the lab sheet, for the description of my sample: liquido, amarillo claro. Clear yellow liquid.
So, relieved at fiinding out I was actually ill, back to the girls and Mark, and then to Muyac Tours, where we signed up for white water rafting, and made plans for Peru's glittering prize - Machu Picchu.
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