When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time To Go Home (13 page)

Actually, he is probably right. We have paid as much as $300 a day to throw up in a sink shaped like a seashell. I have a history of packing three bathing suits for a trip to the beach and pulling the draperies in my room because I couldn't bear to look at daylight. I lived for a Caribbean cruise to St. Thomas during which you eat eight meals a day, only to wallow in my bunk eating dry crackers and drinking clear liquids.

I don't know what it is—the excitement or the water, the food or the change—but my entire recollection of Santiago, Chile, is lying in a hotel room watching Mr. Ed, the talking horse, spewing out one-liners in Spanish. All I wanted to do was to go home and die in my own bed where maids didn't keep running in and out with clean towels, but my husband said no, “We can't go home. The airline charges $75 a ticket to change the reservation, and you don't want to know what it takes to return a two-week rental car before its time.”

I said if he were sick we'd go home, and he said, “That's because when I get sick, I get sicker than you.”

Hold that thought. I'd like to tell you about Peru. We were on our way to Machu Picchu and flew into Cuzco where the altitude is eleven thousand feet. It was a landing to take your breath away ... assuming you had any left. No sooner had we checked into our hotel than we were approached by a waiter carrying two cups of tea with cocaine leaves floating in it. Holy Nancy Reagan! What to do! Before I could “just say no,” he assured us it was wise to drink it. It would make us sleepy and as we rested, our bodies could become acclimated to the altitude.

My husband drifted off right away. I, on the other hand, figured I had a few hours of daylight before the gift shops closed. Besides, I could sleep at home.

The next morning my husband could not get out of bed. His flulike symptoms made him headachy and listless. “It's probably just flu,” I said.

“My fingernails are turning blue,” he said.

“It's probably more than flu,” I said. We called the hotel doctor, who flung open the windows, put an oxygen mask on my husband's face, and proclaimed him a victim of altitude sickness.

Between dry, parched lips, he summoned me to come closer to his bed and whispered, “We've come all this way to see Machu Picchu and I don't want you to miss it just because I am at death's door. Don't worry about me being here all by myself in a foreign city where I don't speak the language and am at the mercy of a phone that doesn't work half the time. I want you to board the train and go to Machu Picchu and have a wonderful time.”

“OK,” I said, and I was out of there.

Later, when we talked of the experience (and God how he talked of it), the concern wasn't that my husband was going to die alone, it was the agony of paying all that money to stare at ugly wallpaper all day.

According to our doctor's log, our journeys have given us bruised kidneys, blackened toenails that eventually fell off, blurred vision, rashes, pulmonary disorders, chills and fever, conjunctivitis, dehydration from diarrhea, mysterious insect bites that refused to heal, lymph gland infections, sunburned feet from whale watching in the Baja, and a mysterious tropical disease that took six weeks out of my life.

Some illnesses are givens. I know that whenever I am at sea, I can be found at the railing hopefully with the wind at my back. No matter how many precautions I take, I still cannot tolerate the motion of a boat or ship. We had the kids with us one year and decided to cruise out to a little French island called Guadeloupe in the Caribbean.

It was a three-hour trip. The boat had two classes: first and tourist. My husband announced, “Kids, I think your mother would be more comfortable in first class. Maybe there wouldn't be so much motion. I know you're saving money, so you can go tourist if you like.”

Well, you would not believe the jokes that ensued. “Mom can't be classless for three hours? What does she think we're going to do in tourist? Ride next to live chickens? Who's going to take her place at the oars?”

I ignored them and we paid the extra thirty bucks to sit in an air-conditioned cabin with soft seats and a TV set. The classes were divided by a curtain.

Five minutes away from the dock, I grabbed two barf bags and hit the floor, flat on my back. It was not a pretty sight. Hearing laughter, I looked up, and standing over my chilled, sweating, nauseous, green body were the kids. “So this is first class,” they chirped. “Nice seat you got, Mom. Too bad you're missing an old 'Perry Mason' rerun on your TV set.”

If the environment doesn't get you and the water doesn't do you in, you have one last obstacle to clear before you can come home well: food.

You have no idea what you are eating. One day in Africa, we were having a box lunch. As I picked up a piece of meat, I asked, “Does anyone know what kind of an animal has a one-and-a-half-inch thigh?” Everyone stopped eating, returned the meat to the box, and hit for the fruit.

Travelers feel the world is so homogenized that there is no place they can go without getting American food. This isn't really true. I could hardly wait until we got to Israel to sample all that New York deli cuisine— you know, the sandwiches with two pounds of pastrami between the softest rye bread on the planet with dollops of hot mustard and a crisp kosher pickle on the side. Forget it. Israel is a whole lamb on a rotisserie dripping fat in the restaurant window, hummus made out of chickpeas, falafel, and tasteless bagels the size of hubcaps.

Most countries use very little meat in their diets. They serve a lot of fish. I have the feeling that I am eating bait most of the time.

And it works in reverse. Can you imagine what Fatburgers look like to a man from New Delhi? I was seated on a plane next to a man from Japan one day when lunch was served. He didn't speak a word of English, so there was no warning him when he picked up his knife and fork and began to saw through a large, firm pat of butter. He properly balanced a bite of it on the fork, deposited it in his mouth, and began to chew slowly.

Throughout the years, I have set up my own rules for eating (or not eating) food:

Never eat anything you can't pronounce.

Beware of food that is described as, “Some Americans say it tastes like chicken.”

If a country does not have one single head of cattle, no ranges, and no cowboys, don't order beef.

This is no time to be a sport. When they tell you the skin of what you are eating makes wonderful shoes and handbags, leave it.

Resist eating anything that when dropped on the floor excites a dog.

In countries where men wear red checkered tablecloths on their heads, don't order Italian.

Someone did a survey on the number of travelers who suffered from some physical ailment while traveling. It seems sixty-two percent of vacationers come down with upset stomachs, heartburn, indigestion, diarrhea, and sunburn.

Sometimes it's carelessness. Other times you have only to mention one word that will bring you to your knees . . . MEXICO!

Mexico

My young son and I lay side by side on the double bed with all the curtains drawn, casting the casita into darkness.

The door opened and a blinding ray of sunlight caused me to grab a wet towel off the nightstand and cover my eyes, and him to bury his head in the pillow.

“Why don't you come to the beach?” asked my husband brightly. “It's beautiful!”

“How far is it from this room?”

“Twenty . . . thirty yards, max.”

“That's too far from the bathroom,” I groaned. “Shut the door.”

“What about you, sport? I thought you wanted to go parasailing?”

My son threw a pillow at the door just before it slammed.

We had been in Mazatlan only an hour or so when both of us were struck down with Montezuma's revenge.

Forget the fact that I would go home looking like I had been bled white by leeches. Forget lazy days on the beach and romantic nights listening to strolling mariachis. Forget that two dollars would buy me the leather coat of my dreams. I was stuck for a week in this dark room watching cartoons of Tom and Jerry chase each other, with Spanish subtitles.

My mother, who was also on the trip with my father, poked her head in the door. “Bill tells me you want to stay in this depressing room all day. You missed a wonderful lunch. I had a cheese crisp and a large salad.”

“Mother, you're not supposed to eat the lettuce or the tomatoes.”

“I don't believe all that nonsense. Here, I brought you both a bag of tortilla chips from the dining room. Be careful. They're greasy.”

The bag landed on the bed between my son and me. It took only a few seconds for the odor of the animal fat to reach our nostrils before we both bolted to the bathroom.

“Are we bonding yet?” he said, raising his head weakly.

“Any minute now,” I said.

A commercial that I had seen on television came to mind. It showed a Hispanic family who were at Disneyland eating hot dogs and cotton candy. They were holding their stomachs and looking miserable. Then a pink substance oozed down over the screen. When it cleared, the family was smiling and saying, “Gracias Kaopectate.” I used to think about that commercial a lot. Was it possible that people coming to our country couldn't drink the water and suffered stomach cramps during their entire stay? I wanted to believe that.

I love Mexico. It is our Arizona neighbor, and every chance I get I whip across the border at Nogales and poke through the richness of its creativity. I'm there maybe four or five hours before I begin to dehydrate and I must reenter the United States for a drink of water.

It's funny about water. When I am home I have to force myself to drink three glasses a day. When it costs $1.49 a bottle, I am like a sponge.

A friend of ours rented a house one summer in San Miguel de Allende. I made up my mind I was going to be super-careful. I rinsed out my toothbrush in bottled water. I shut my eyes and closed my lips while showering so that not a drop of water invaded my temple of fluoride.

We boiled large tubs of water and used it to make coffee. We washed and rinsed our dishes in boiled water. At a pharmacy we bought a special chemical to soak fresh fruits and vegetables to kill off anything that might infest our system. I chewed so many Pepto-Bismol tablets my teeth turned pink.

One day my husband asked, “Want to go for a swim?”

“How far is the pool from the house?”

“Fifteen . . . twenty yards tops.”

“That's too far,” I said.

There are some people who have stomachs of iron. They can drink water from the tap, eat street food, and feel nothing. My mother is one of those people. She'll try anything. She's the only one I know who leaves an airline and says to the stewardess, “Compliments to the chef.”

I remember when we returned from Mazatlan she dropped off at the drugstore to get something for her constipation.

Is that sick or what!

Traveling with Parents

Several years ago when I was a roving correspondent for ABC's “Good Morning America,” I traveled to the Grand Canyon to do a story on the lack of facilities in national parks to accommodate the handicapped. The parks belong to everyone, and being limited by crutches or wheelchairs should in no way diminish the enjoyment or appreciation of the surroundings.

To prove the point, I sat on a ledge of the canyon with a young blind man from Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. I asked him what he “saw” on his descent into the canyon.

My eyes were wet with tears as he described hugging the large boulders that held the heat of the sun long after it had gone down. He told of how he heard giant hawks overhead and felt the coolness of their shadows. From the echoes, he gleaned the scope and depth of the canyon. He felt the winds stir the brush along the trail and scooped up the cold water of the restless Colorado that carved out a place for itself on the canyon floor. He even felt the layers of rock that left their own imprint of time and glacier activity.

When he finished, I vowed that never again would I believe that people are too old or too incapacitated to travel and to enjoy where they are.

When my parents were younger, they traveled a lot. Later in their lives, when my father had difficulty in getting around, they announced their traveling days were over.

I thought they were too young to retire their passports and told them so. Why should they get to sit at home and live the good life while the rest of us were out there kicking suitcases in a checkout line, climbing on and off tour buses, filling out landing forms, and struggling with language. Besides, we had seen too many older people on our travels climbing over rocks, riding camels, scaling mountains, and putting in fifteen-hour days to know that if you really wanted to see the world, it was doable.

My mother said it would be nice to travel with us, but we should pick a nice, easy vacation so they could keep up. Something not too weird that would challenge us but still be relaxing for them.

“I was hoping you'd say that,” I said.

“So where are we going?”

“Down the Amazon.”

Now, before every amateur traveler in the world rushes out and plans a vacation with parents, you must ask yourself a few questions and answer them honestly.

1. Did your mother-in-law wear a black armband to the wedding?

2. Do they still think Hawaii is a foreign country?

3. Are you still arguing with your mother over whether a three-year-old should have a pacifier implant?

4. Do your parents tell you to sit up straight and not talk with food in your mouth?

5. Do you have anything in common beyond occupying the planet Earth?

Happily, the four of us genuinely like one another and travel well together.

We flew to Manaus where the dark waters of Brazil's Rio Negro meet the muddy waters of the Rio Solimoes to form the Amazon. Then we transferred to a canoe where we eased our way through cocoa trees, rubber plantations, and channels of tropical birds and huge water lilies. Actually, the pace was pretty leisurely, but back in the city my dad ran out of gas. Shopping to him was on the same social plateau as mud wrestling. He said, “I'll wait for you here on the park bench. Take your time.” Thus began my father's own private adventures. From that moment, his vacation took on a life of its own. As he whiled away his afternoons on the bench, he was entertained by a snake charmer, treated to a political debate, and hit on by two hookers.

In every city we visited, on every trip we took, he staked out a spot in the center of town and absorbed the sights and sounds of its people. If we wanted to know what was going on, we asked him.

He wanted desperately to see the large statue of Christ the Redeemer that rises one hundred feet into the air on a peak overlooking Rio. But the train only took us part of the way up. The rest you had to walk. That was difficult for him.

It took both of us an hour and a half to make it to the top, but it was a personal triumph for him, as was the entire trip. He and my mother display the proof of their efforts on their kitchen wall. They had their picture taken and mounted on the tackiest plate in South America. They paid $15 for it. It's worth a million in memories.

Vacations are nothing more than a series of “moments.” These are special times that you remember in between all the exhaustion of getting from one place to another. That trip with my parents was to be the beginning of a lot of trips we took together. It was also a time of discovery. We were seeing one another as friends.

I discovered my mother could carry on a conversation with a street sign. She never knew a stranger. One day on a boat trip outside Rio, she was “chatting” with a family from Argentina. Mom had a bandanna over her mouth and two imaginary six-shooters in her hands, and they were nodding like they understood what she was saying. I can only assume she was telling them she was from Arizona, home of cowboys and Indians. Then again, she could have been telling them about a bad meal she got in Rio where the owner overcharged and she felt like wasting him. Who knows?

In Ireland, my father never really understood how bed-and-breakfast works. When we pulled the car into the driveway of a private home, he said, “I don't want to bother these people. Let's go to a hotel.” We tried to explain to him what he suggested was a lot like checking into a Marriott and saying, “Look, if you're busy, we'll just sleep in the car and eat a candy bar.”

“That's what these people do for a living,” I explained. “They want guests. Look at them. They're coming out to the car to meet us, and they're smiling.”

He still wasn't convinced. He went into his bedroom and didn't come out until we loaded up the car in the morning. Then he apologized to them for dirtying two towels. So much for culture exchange.

One day in Spain, I said to them, “How would you like to see a bullfight in Barcelona?”

“I've seen it on TV,” said my dad. “It's too bloody.”

“You love Ava Gardner, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“Ava Gardner loved bullfights.”

“She did?”

“Never missed them,” I said.

“We could possibly last through one,” he said.

Actually, there were six bulls to be fought that day, and like the child who eventually turns into the mother, I got them settled and gave them their instructions. “You have to understand, this is a national pastime in this country, and they do not view it with the same horror or disdain as Americans do. We have to respect that. All I'm asking is that you refrain from making comments about 'What kind of animals are these people?' and 'How would they like it if bulls in capes stuck spears in their necks?' OK?”

They nodded their heads in agreement.

When the first bull was released, Mother said aloud, “You poor thing. If you knew what I know.”

“Mother!” I snapped.

“Sorry,” she said.

When an ear was presented to a woman in a box just down from us, my father shook his head from side to side.

“All the meat goes to the orphanage,” I said, patting his hand.

For the next five encounters, we heard absolutely nothing from either of them. Not a peep. When I turned around to tell them it was time to go, both were sitting there with their eyes closed.

You never dwell on what you can't do on a vacation, but what you can do. My dad didn't have to play St. Andrews golf course in Scotland. Seeing it was enough. He didn't have to roam the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. It was enough to feel the mist on his face and watch the birds dart in and out. Just sitting around on park benches, parking lots, walls, and sidewalk cafes, he probably absorbed more of the flavor of the country than we did.

It is important to note my dad didn't snap a single picture. He didn't have to. His memory was an album of moments he cherished till the day he died.

Restroom

In 1984, I traveled to NASA in Houston to do a piece on the space shuttle for “Good Morning America.” If this was to be the Greyhound bus of the future, I had to know the most important thing about it: “Where's the toilet?”

This probably seems insignificant to most people, but as far as I'm concerned, plumbing is the key to world power. It is the universal language, the one essential that binds us all together, the common denominator that is of the utmost importance to those of us who share this planet.

One cannot possibly imagine the prestige that will be accorded the nation who perfects a toilet that works. Toilets were invented by the Romans in the second century. The very next day, Out of Order signs were invented.

At NASA, a public relations man directed me to a large seat in the space capsule that looked like a death chair. It had a seat belt and head and foot restraints to compensate for weightlessness in space.

“This is the space toilet,” he said.

“Does this really work?” I asked.

“Not well,” he said reluctantly. “We've got a lot of bugs to work out.”

Five years of research and $12 million worth of engineering had gone into this mechanism, and it still didn't function properly.

I'd like the adventure of going to other planets as well as the next person, but until they can either come up with a toilet that functions or a plumber who works in space on Sundays, I'm not going.

Istanbul

Istanbul is a city in Turkey shrouded in mystery, steeped in history, rich in antiquity, and stubbornly hanging on to its old-world ambience. And that's only the toilets.

Restroom facilities aren't as important to men as they are to women. Male travelers tend to focus on ruins that have withstood time, palaces that harbor secrets, and religious shrines that have shaped the destiny of a country.

Women might be interested in all this too if they had the time. But they have to figure out if you pull a chain to flush, step on a pedal, push a button, jiggle a handle, or push a detonator on the back of the commode like you are blowing up a train.

Istanbul is the ultimate restroom experience. I hardly know where to begin. I'll start with my back. Due to a herniated disk, I was in bed for four months before I embarked on the trip. This is important for you to know because it explains why my leg muscles were gone.

Leg muscles are absolutely essential in Istanbul because all of the restroom facilities are nothing more than a hole in the floor with two little Arthur Murray feet etched in the cement on either side of the hole facing a wall. There is nothing to hang on to. Once you're down there, you've made a serious commitment.

You don't know despair until you have fallen on your backside on a (ugh) wet restroom floor in Istanbul with your English cries for help falling on Turkish ears.

For years, I have been waiting for a travel writer with the courage to put out a handbook (waterproof, of course) telling us what to expect in the way of restroom facilities. They all tap dance around the subject like it's not important. To women, it's right up there with breathing and a valid passport.

We should know if they're called loos or WCs. We should know whether we have to carry our own tissue, which ones are unisex, and how much money they cost before we can use them.

If I had been enlightened, I would never have asked a man at the gas station in a small village in Africa if he would give me the key to the restroom.

He looked at me like I had just asked for the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Instead, he laughed and pointed to the bush surrounding us. I declined.

A few miles from the station, I asked our driver to pull over to the side of the road. As I slid back the door he warned, “Watch out for lion in the ditches. They like to sleep there.”