The Man in a Cocoon

September 1st, 2009: Sliding into my chilly cocoon that strongly resembles a sleeping bag, my body violently shakes as I painfully reach to grasp my blanket to cover myself from the outside world. Laying there I look as if I am going though some withdraws from a cocaine addiction I never even had a chance to start. My body seems to be in a full blown battle that started its defensive days earlier.

I feel as if every inch of my body was mercilessly clubbed by a heartless Eskimo wanting my pasty white skin for a new face not to mention that my eyes seeming like my optical cords were painfully shortened by an inspiring doctor who read the most recent edition of “How to harvest optical cords for Dummies.” To look somewhere besides straight ahead…I had to use Mr. Frankenstein’s effective technique of rotating my body in my desired direction to see.

I must have looked quite amusing as I staggered down the streets of Quito to get some soup today at the local market. Perhaps this is the source of my problem. Not wanting to eat at restaurants, I have been consuming loads of calories from the individuals with their BBQ’s and fryers along the street, where you can pick up a meal for roughly a $1. I know the meat sits there all day and unrefrigerated, but I eat this not just for survival but to toughen up my soft westernized stomach. After so many times of getting sick I would think that by now I would have callused my stomach lining enough to eat raw sewage, stones and other appetizing items I find along the way – like a goat I suppose.

Thinking that my body was performing a deep cleaning…discharging everything that was good and bad, I had confidence that in time it would defeat this intruder. I am attempting to keep the doctors and the pharmaceutical empire out of this...not knowing how many weeks of travel will be lost from the cost of such a visit and how I am going to explain everything in a language I am not yet proficient in without a translator.

In my cocoon my mind is easily tricked to think it was camping. Wonderful thoughts battled my physical reality. The sleeping bag was a counter measure the invading forces were not ready for. Mentally I laid there growing stronger, getting me through another long cold night on the battle field. Maaahhhh.