Earthquake! Bacterial infections ;( and Cuzco...

I thought I must be really really dizzy. I mean, I was pretty sick, but I could have sworn the room was shaking. I am opened my eyes and sat up. Santiago said ¨Elizabeth, we gotta get out of here¨ I followed him, confused, to the staircase. We were on the fourth floor of the hotel in Lima where we had arrived a few hours before, me barely able to stand with a horrible bacterial infection.

We reached the staircase and as we raced down it the building swayed back and forth knocking us around like pinballs down the stairs and out on to the street. As we ran out into the dark road and the earth moved like an ocean wave under my feet, I finally understood.

Earthquake. Strong earthquake. Santiago dragged me into the middle of the intersection far from the electricity poles. Women screaming and babies crying.

Two interminably long minutes later the earth stood still, but it wasnt over. For the next few days strong aftershocks shook the building and sent us running down to the street, me sometimes wrapped in a blanket and fighting a fever.

With no other options in Bogota, we decided to make a dash across Ecuador and travel south into Peru. We travelled four days straight without stopping and along the way I picked up a horrible illness that landed us in the hotel in Lima for five days after the earthquake. I didnt leave bed except to call my family and tell them, to their surprise, I was in Peru and not Colombia as all had thought.

Well, finally, two days ago, I was strong enough to leave Lima, and we headed south to Cuzco. In the night we passed Ica and Pisco, where the epicenter was and where hundreds of men, women, and children perished. The second floor of houses were on the ground. The poorest neighborhoods were the hardest hit due to the poor construction of their adobe houses. It looked like a war zone. Twisted remains of furniture in squashed apartment buildings. Children sleeping on the ground with a thin blanket in the cold. Fires in tires to ward off looters. Apocalyptic. Passing through in the bus, like seeing it on the news, except so much more real.

Now we are in Cuzco, off to Machu Picchu, accompanied by our constant complaint about ignorant gringo tourists. There are no tourists in Colombia. Southern Peru, on the other hand, wow.

Well, I am safe and sound and relatively pretty healthy now.