Havana - Day of the Dead - Part 1

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Geo: 23.1168, -82.3886

I never get sick when travelling ->not sick sick, but last night was an exception. A very serious exception. I started vomiting and couldn't stop. Then it would stop and about an hour later start again. This went on literally all night. I have never been so sick in my life.At one point, because I was freezing, I got up, drank two bottles of water, put on my wool socks, fleece jacket and bathrobe and crawled back under the covers only to have to get up again to throw up.. Finally, I just stayed on the floor in the bathroom.That's when the chills started, violent chills. I couldn't stop shaking and it was gross motor movement, not just little'chills.' I was frightened and couldn't even think straight enough to call to Jeff for help. Later, Leroy told me that those weren't chills, but my body had gone into shock and was convulsing. If I had not been able to get hydrated and warmed I could have died. Could you imagine the paperwork THAT would have caused? haha!
Because we are traveling on a strict person-to-person cultural exchange, Jeff needed to follow the program and I am bummed because today the group is going to a cigar factory and is having lunch with a famous Cuban baseball player.

But the itinerary was unknown to me as I was in bed, all bundled up, in a near-unconscious/semi-conscious state all day. I do remember sitting up when I heard someone in the room. I murmured "Estoy enferma" "I am sick" to the minibar refill woman and frightened the living daylights out of her. She didn't know I was there and here is this crazed person rising from the covers and then flopping back down.

The next thing I remember was Jeff shaking me awake. He was back for the day, around 3pm, and he wasn't feeling very well. Unfortunately, though I appeared to be hardest hit and was pretty much incapacitated, others in the group were getting sick as well. In all, only 4 of our group of 27 were unaffected by dinnertime. Jeff, our guides and our driver were all sick. What a nightmare.

A bit of investigation "What did you eat for lunch?" "What did you eat for lunch." narrowed down the problem - the rice at lunch yesterday had given all of us (the remaining 4 healthy folk soon succumbed) food poisoning. And that explains why I was hardest hit. While the rest of the group had a meat entree and rice was one if their side dishes, MY meal was vegetables and rice with a rice side dish and I ate plenty.

Lydea contacted Havana Tours, our in-country contact, to report that everyone in our tour had food poisoning and she was told that we were the third group to make that report today!

So, since I have nothing to say about today's events, Part 2 of today is written by Jeff.

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Comments

[Bev and Wen]

Food poisoning from rice - that's a new one. I'm guessing the rice had something on it. Anyway, glad you, two, made it through.