I love South America. Even though I haven’t been to many places there. The short list is as follows. Colombia, Guyana, Brazil, Ecuador. Considering the number of countries I’ve gone to other regions, this is kind of embarrassing. I did have a trip scheduled once that would have taken me nearly to every country in the region, but things happened. What’s that? Tell you what went on? OK, but remember you asked for it.
While under contract to the US Department of State to repair and maintain security systems at embassies and consulates, one of my 2-3 months excursions consisted of darn near all of South America. I was really looking forward to the trip since I hadn’t visited the region that much (except for Guyana and Columbia a couple of times) and I always enjoyed going to new areas.
I should have known the trip was going to be a disaster from events that occurred while still in Panama (Noriega was in charge at this time). My partner for this particular trip (Let’s call him George since that was his name) and I were on our way to the Panama Airport to go to our first stop in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Having heard all kinds of wonderful things about the dental floss bikinis worn in the area, I was looking forward to taking in the (ahem) sights.
Our taxi driver was on the main drag to the airport, it was late at night (around 8 PM, which while not late for most things, was very late for an international flight) and all seemed right with the world. I had my head back on the headrest and was enjoying a little catnap. Suddenly George screamed ‘STOP!’ and the taxi driver locked up his brakes. This was fortunate for just about everyone concerned since some idiot drunk guy had just walked in front of the car. When the driver hit the brakes, the front end of the car dipped down enough to not run the guy over. He actually was scooped up on top the hood, rolled up the front windshield, over the roof, and bounced off the trunk into the road behind us. Amazingly, the guy stood right back up (somewhat wobbly). The driver said something about giving the guy 10 bucks and we would be on our way. Unfortunately the police (notoriously corrupt) showed up and delayed us for about 20 minutes. They took our information and let us continue on after taking the driver’s license so he would return. We never did find out what happened after. If I was to guess, I would say the taxi driver probably paid off the police and that was probably the end of it.
We got into Rio early that morning (A Friday) and mostly just slept or walking around the Copa Cabana Strip (very near our hotel) the next day. That evening, we decided to take a walk and see what else was in the area. We walked down the strip until we ran out of streetlights and decided to return to the safer more lit area. We hadn’t gotten very far when we were stopped by the three ugliest girls (?) I had ever seen who asked us for a cigarette. George copped out like he didn’t have any (which he did), so they came up to me. I handed one of them a cigarette and she (?) jumped on top of me with her legs around my back asking me to take her back to the hotel where she claimed she would do anatomically impossible acts.
At this point I should say that I had heard of the pickpockets in Brazil and had thought I was being clever by having my money in one front pocket (But stupidly carrying $100 US and $100 Brazilian Cruzados) and my wallet in another front pocket.
While she (?) was rubbing against me, she deftly got the combined $200 bucks, but not the wallet. I never felt a thing and once I had her off me, we continued on our way. About ten seconds later that feeling that something happened hit me (well duh) and I checked my pockets. Wallet there, money gone. I turned and ran back toward them as they were just getting into a cab. They saw me coming and starting yelling in Portuguese at the driver to go. He took off just as I got there and I never saw them or my money again. After that, I carried no more than $20 at any time in my pockets, but kept extra funds that I might need in my socks at the bottom of my foot. This of course made me walk funny and my cash was somewhat the worse for wears, but at least it wasn’t going to be stolen in the same way again.
Even after that experience, I have to say that Rio was fabulous and I would love to go back again. Beautiful beaches, the nightlife is spectacular, the people are very friendly and almost all of them speak English. This was not the end of my Brazilian troubles however.
From Rio we went to the Capital city of Brasilia. This is a relatively new city carved out of the Amazon jungle strictly for the running of the Brazilian Government. As such, they have 4-5 lane streets running through the various districts for future use. When I was there (1987), it was still almost empty. We did what we had to do and prepared to go to our last stop in Brazil, Sao Paulo.
As we were getting ready to go, I noticed I had some bumps filled with some kind of fluid on the back of my neck. I ignored it at the time and we continued our preparations for travel. Off we went to Sao Paulo. When I got up the first morning, I had a headache and my left arm felt like it had gone through a meat grinder, been put back together, and then put through the grinder again in case they missed something the first time. I worked for maybe 4 hours that day before calling it quits. I was asked if I wanted to see the Consulate doctor, but I begged off thinking I would feel better the next day.
The next day came around and it was worse. I slugged through that day and yet another before finally giving up and realizing that something might just be seriously wrong with me. I arrived at the doctor’s office feeling like 10 pounds of fertilizer in a 5-pound bag. The doctor checked me out and informed me that I had Herpes Zoster. I panicked and informed the doctor that I had not been fooling around with any women so I couldn’t have herpes. The doctor found this highly amusing and said that it was also called something else, but his English wasn’t very good. He thought about it and said that it was also called shingles. I must have still had a blank look on my face because then he said, ‘Oh How you say..oh Yes! Chickenpox!’ Even though I had never had it as a kid, I understood this very well. I called my boss back in the States and he said that I could not travel in this condition (since it takes 6-8 weeks for the infection to clear) and that I should arrange for a flight home. So George continued with the trip and on Halloween night of 1987 (Bad things happen to me on Halloween, another story for the future), I boarded an Eastern Airlines (anyone remember them?) DC-10 for Miami.
While at the airport, I ran into one of the Marines stationed at the Consulate who came up and punched me friendly-like in my left arm. The one that hurt. A lot. When he saw my reaction, he apologized and helped me carry all my stuff to the gate even though it was out of his way.
A quick thought about the United States Marine Corp. Prior to my overseas job, I had never given them much thought. I had two Brothers and a Sister who had joined the Air Force and another Brother who was a Coast Guard Reservist and that had been the extent of my military experience. I never joined the military myself. I would have gotten beat up every day by the DI’s since by nature I am a lazy smart-ass. Neither of which is conductive for a pleasant experience in the Armed Forces of the United States. Well to finish this quickly let me say that no matter what kind of hell-hole I found myself in at various parts of the world, as long as I didn’t abuse the privilege, I could almost always go over to the Marine House and have a cold beer, watch satellite TV, shoot some pool, swim, or even work out. In some countries without restaurants that could be trusted, they fed us as well. They even took us out on some of their excursions at times. I could tell stories about THAT as well (in the future perhaps), but I just wanted to say that I appreciated the warm welcome, hospitality, and the professionalism of the USMC Embassy Detachments. Go Devil DOGS!
Anyway, I got on the plane and was pretty much miserable for the entire flight. It was so bad it lead up to a serious lack of judgment on my part that made the overall experience just that much more horrible. I went up to one of the Stews and asked if they had anything to make my back stop itching. She said no and requested to see my back. The next stupid thing I did was to actually show her. She recoiled and informed me that nothing was on board to help. I painfully shrugged my shoulders and went back to my seat.
About 30 minutes before we were scheduled to land, the co-pilot came back to see me and informed me that a man from the Quarantine Department at Miami was coming on board once we landed. Now the fun was really going to begin. Just after landing but before we arrived at our gate, the Captain announced that no one was to leave their seats yet as someone was going to be removed from the plane first. All throughout the plane colorful language was being used to describe the parentage of whoever it was that was delaying them from getting off the plane. No sooner did the doors open when the Flight Attendant was escorting an official looking person of interest right toward my seat. I gathered my belongings and followed him out trying not to make eye contact with any of my thoroughly ticked off travel mates.
Once I was safely off the plane, I started following the man from quarantine through the labyrinths of the Miami International Airport. Before too long we arrived at the customs desk. While I worked for this company, I was given a red US passport also known as the Official passport. By its color alone, it identified me as working under the auspices of the US Government but without diplomatic immunity. This means if someone wants to screw with an official American, they can. Miami Airport is probably one of the toughest international airports to travel through. They check everything they are allowed to and no red passport was going to get me by this guy. I was used to it however and was getting ready to open my bags for him when the man from quarantine stopped me. He looked at the customs guy and told him he had no right to stop anyone he was escorting. The customs guy fired back that he had the right to inspect anything and anyone he wanted to. This went back and forth with my back and arm making me thoroughly miserable. I even tried to intervene by telling the Q guy that I didn’t mind, the C guy could look at anything he wanted to. Q told me to shut up and stay out of it as it didn’t concern me. So I sat on my bags, lit up a smoke and waited for them to work it out.
The C guy finally backed down and Q and I went on to his office. Once it was established that I indeed had chickenpox, but was past the infectious stage, I was allowed to continue on to my flight for Washington DC, but was told to go to the hospital once I got there.
When I got to DC and went to the hospital, it was confirmed for the third time that I had chickenpox. I asked what I could take for it and the doctor said nothing will help clear it. I explained that I was in a lot of pain and he wrote me a prescription for Percoset. While this did not make any difference in the infection, it did make the next 6 weeks or so very enjoyable from a semi-conscious point of view.
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