Day 26

All I can say is that between my last post and this one, our time has been a bit challenging. The tummy trouble I complained of on the day of the trip to hierve el agua did not go away. By last Saturday I was in agony, and could not get out of bed that day. I was so uncomfortable, I could barely move. Unfortunately we were scheduled to leave Sunday for the coast, with a stop on the way in a town called San Jose del Pacifico. We were very eager to leave the city and see some nature and coastline, but I was worried about the actual trip. For me, it’s a bit of a blur. We did leave Sunday, and we did end up in lovely San Jose, perched on the edge of a high mountain (9,000 ft. I think). We stayed in a pretty cabin with a fireplace and hot water, and everything about the experience was nice except for how awful I felt and how extraordinarily windy the road was to get there, which did not help my nausea. The next day we made it to Huatulco, and showed up at our cute hotel. The staff is lovely, and the owner is French so I have been getting to speak French here. After struggling so much trying to learn Spanish, speaking French is such a welcome relief.

We headed to the beach Monday afternoon and were thrilled to see tons of large black crabs on the rocks, hermit crabs, the carnivorous ground cover that the boys learned about in the garden in Oaxaca and with which they could play for hours. We also saw enormous birds that at first we thought were so big that maybe they were albatross. They didn’t quite match the bird in the book though and finally Jasper said he thought they are magnificent frigate birds. After checking them out in the bird book, we think they are. There are a lot of them here and they are truly beautiful and amazing to see gliding overhead. Tuesday we headed to another beach. It was pretty and calm, great for kids to swim, but a bit crowded. The back of the beach was lined with seafood palapas and thankfully, bathrooms, because I wasn’t out of the woods yet. That was the day I started to feel a bit better though. We ate at one of the palapas and Jim’s “fish soup” was literally an entire fish, head, eyes and all, in a pool of broth. It was almost too much for me to bear given the delicate state of my stomach, but Jim said it was really good.

On Wednesday I felt better, but by then Hugo had developed a fever and diarrhea and Jasper had diarrhea and bad smells were making him throw up. Bad smells were things like car exhaust (which by now make Jim and I nauseous), but also, sadly, seafood and sea air, probably because one of his first rounds of vomiting took place at the beach next to a seafood palapa. We spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday sequestered in our hotel room, nursing two boys too sick to eat, and getting to know a local doctor who happened to be eating in the hotel restaurant. Our hotel owners knew we’d all been sick and said that he’s the best doc in town and introduced me to him. He was really nice and helpful, and gave me a prescription right on the spot. The boys seemed worse the next day though, so I called him and he told us to bring the boys to him. Imagine our surprise when we showed up and found out that he’s a gynecologist! He offered for us to see the pediatrician, but also seemed so knowledgeable about local GI problems that we chose to stay with him. He prescribed several types of medication, all of which we went out and bought. He guaranteed that with this mix of meds, the boys would feel better in a couple days. I do have to mention that it took him about 20 minutes to type out the very thorough prescription on an old typewriter, and then he went over it with us 3 times to make sure we really, really understood.

We were relieved, but then realized that all the medications tasted absolutely disgusting. I tried two of them on Jasper, at different times, and he threw them both up. Hugo couldn’t bear them either and spit them out. Despite all that, they were willing to try a couple times, with similar results. They just couldn’t get them down. Fortunately though, today (Saturday), they both seem much, much better. No vomiting, less diarrhea, no fever. We actually had a fun day, going to the pool twice because the idea of sea air still makes Jasper nauseous (I really hope he gets over this soon). They also ate more today. I don’t think there is anything that can make a mother happier than seeing her children eat, especially after they’ve been sick.

Just a word about the nausea and aversions though. Very sadly, I identify feeling so terrible with the food that caused it, namely standard Oaxacan fare. Even as I write this the idea of eating a tortilla or refried beans can almost make me heave. And everywhere you go there are people making tortillas on the street, torilleria shops, and the smell of the tortillas mixes with the smell of car exhaust. Very luckily, our hotel and this town in general have some foreign food options, so we have gorged on spaghetti Bolognese, pizza and steak this week..

Hopefully we will actually get to see some local scenery tomorrow because we head to another area on the coast, San Augustinillo, on Monday.

It’s worth mentioning here that when I was still feeling terrible and the kids were both so sick we decided to just throw the towel in and go home early. Jim called the airline and found out that there are no frequent flyer seats left, so unless we wanted to buy new tickets we were stuck. We were feeling like prisoners, but now with everyone feeling better we are optimistic that there are more fun times to be had here before heading home.