Frosted Flakes: Being Sick While Traveling

relax it’s a thermometer not a vape pen | Photo by David Jones – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images

Sometimes you get sick when you travel. It sucks. I had a feeling I would end up with a cold the day our group was soaked from the rain on the second day of our Santa Cruz Trek in Peru. We were all huddled together in the cooking tent trying to dry off our jackets, pants, socks and shoes.

Usually when I have a cold, it lingers around for 6-7 days so I should be back to feeling normal health by the time I start the Salkantay Trek on Monday. It’s a trek I’ve been looking forward to doing for a long time. Hopefully I won’t get stuck in the cold rain and end up sick again. Fingers crossed.

I have only ended up having to see a doctor three times during my travel aboard. Once was in Ghana back in 2011, while I was interning at a sports tv station. I ate a small cookie that tastes funny and next thing you know I was having cold sweats, throwing up in the toilet and my host ran to the main road and waved down a taxi to take me to the nearest hospital. I remember laying down on the bench in the clinic waiting for the doctor to take a look at me. He gave me some antibiotics to take for a few days but whatever was in my stomach appears to be expunged as I was feeling fine a few hours later. I also didn’t end up with malaria during my summer in Ghana despite my host and other volunteer friends falling victim to it. I guess I had some really strong malaria pills.