Disease Tacos no Prisoners
Illness is one of the great human sufferings [1]. Be it the result of crossing the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy aboard a rusting, overcrowded vessel, or because you’ve paid $500 for a five-day open water PADI dive course in the Great Barrier Reef, it’s still seasickness.
I find great solace and gratification in knowing exactly what is going through the minds of all those Somalis and Eritreans as they flee their homelands.
Land-based viruses are also terrible. In fact, around 1.5 million human beings die each year as a result of water-borne diseases alone. As a backpacker and immigrant, I too have bared witness to and suffered from various bouts of disease.
For example, I will always treasure the five months I spent living in Mexico City back in 2006. Even though I’d only been in the country for two months at this time, I was advanced in the carefree manner in which I strolled the streets of la Ciudad de Mexico. Perhaps, I was too casual; too Mexican.
IT'S ONLY NACHO-RAL: It's clear from the state of Juancho's cut forearm and finger that he was a bit clumsy with a knife. That's probaby why he elected to leave the skin and feathers on the chicken pieces. If I'd known at the time his tacos would incapcitate me for a few weeks, I may never have eaten them. That begs the question: would I be as famed for my compassion (and backpacking skills) today if I hadn't?
I’d been to the Museo Nacional de Antropologia earlier in the day, and later explored the backstreets towards the south of Zócalo. I stopped by a dank cafeteria along the way and bought a bottle of Coca Cola to quench my thirst, when the café owner then chased me west halfway along Calle de Mesones. [2] My jog had taken me as far as Calle Lopez. It was there I caught a whiff [3] of the delicious aroma of Juancho’s Taqueria - a quaint street-side taco vendor whose portable food stand was propped up by a car tyre and two bricks.
Unperturbed by the flies and the red stain dried into the tarmac beneath Juancho’s feet, I took a seat at a rickety plastic table and ordered eagerly from the salsa-stained menu.
I wrote in my journal while I waited for my food, making subtle observations:
"Flying in the face of traditional health and safety regulations, Juancho’s regular addition of raw chicken and pork into the same brown oil in which floats the cooked meats, seems only to enhance the aroma. And at only 55 Mexican pesos (USD 3) for five, I think I’ve stumbled upon Mexico’s best kept secret." [4]
I continued:
"Probably from a long line of taco makers, Juancho pours his love [5] into each and every one of those corn discs, even taking the time to trim most of the gristle from the pork and beef cuts."
PEP TALK: Though my saviour in Mexico, these pink tablets play havoc with your digestive system, Sure, they eventually stop the diarrhoea, but one is left clogged for days on end afterwards. Ironically, a trip to Juancho's Taqueria privides an almost instant remedy.
Even now I consider these the tastiest five tacos I’ve ever eaten in my life, despite the two bedridden weeks I subsequently spent with chronic gastroenteritis. Less hardy travellers using the safety net of “travel insurance” may well have checked into a hospital once they started to pass blood through their stools. But real backpackers don’t do/can’t afford/don’t bother with travel insurance. And anyway, with a good rest and a diet of Peptobismol and bottled water, I was eventually able to expunge the illness from my system. [6]
It’s these experiences on the road that make one appreciate that we’re not so different - the poorly Ethiopian child suffering from amoebiasis, and me, the worldly backpacker: we've so much in common. That's why I've always thrown my support behind UNHCR and Oxfam. [7]
Naturally, I assumed everyone felt this unity with other humans. But, to borrow a popular Mexican phrase, no way, José.
Readers will recall I was temporarily ejected from the Galah recently due to an incident which I have - until now - declined to specify, but which resulted in Darryl and Quentin issuing me with a hefty carpet cleaning bill.
See, I’d been out earlier in the evening and returned to the hostel around 2am. I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me [8] for, as I explained to D & Q the next afternoon, I could barely walk in a straight line. I certainly hadn’t been competing in a tequila drinking session with “a bunch of Brazilians half my age” at the Beach Road Hotel, as they claimed. Moreover, I certainly hadn’t done so in a “pathetic” attempt to appear younger or ingratiate myself into their group.
No. Those are all lies. I had one drink with them and then headed back to the Galah.
I entered the 16-bed dorm room as quietly as one with food poisoning can, despite my head spinning wildly. But with all that gastroenteritis building up inside me, it’s little wonder I went on the vomiting spree to end all vomiting sprees. Feverish, blinded by my own sweat and really really dizzy, I was likely in need of intensive care. But nobody came to my aid. Instead, witnesses [9] in the room claim I deliberately targeted my honk towards a lower bunk bed, which happened to belong [10] to one of the aforementioned Brazilians who D & Q claim I was trying to impress.
Lies again.
Rafinho’s girlfriend, Flavia, is so-so at best, and the idea I’d deliberately puke into his sheets and the floor area around his bed because I was in some way “envious”, is fiction.
I suffered from a chronic virus [11], which – as much as I’ve tried not to think it because of the harm it could to Darryl & Quentin’s beloved/neglected Galah – was most likely caught from one of the many unhygienic spaces from within the hostel itself. So, the fact that Rafinho and the boys are still cold-shouldering me whenever I walk into the dorm now speaks volumes about their character, and that of Brazilians as a whole. [12]
Can you imagine a poor little Somali girl being reprimanded by the gang of people smugglers for chundering over the deck of the fishing trawler transporting her to Sicily? Answer: no.
[1] As is death.
[2] I assumed he wanted to stab me in the back or harvest one of my kidneys. Actually he only wanted back the glass Coke bottle. It turns out that while Mexicans are content with dumping their rubbish directly into their water systems, they are comically anal about recycling glass bottles.
[3] The frying pork and chicken cut through Mexico City’s famous smog like Ronaldinho’s gnashers through a strippers g-string.
[4] And that’s exactly how I described it in my Tripadvisor rating a few weeks later, despite the gastroentritis threat.
[5] And grease.
[6] Only four months later I was back eating solids again.
[7] And once I'm in a position to donate money I certainly intend to do so.
[8] Not dissimilar to a taco from Juancho’s Taqueria.
[9] Darryl conducted an informal investigation into the matter and stuck up a poster asking for “witness statements”.
[10] It being a coincidence. Not “because” it belonged to Rafinho, as some claim.
[11] Which shares remarkably similar symptoms to being bladdered.
[12] Not including Flavia.