Eating Mexican food = Walking through a mine field

Mexican food is hazardous. People talk about the crime, but it´s the food you´ve got to watch out for! Though we´ve found that it´s near impossible to tell where an attack of the bad foods will occur. I thought, like most places, that the risks in eating the food would be exaggerated. But we seem to have copped enough in the last two weeks to make up for problem free trips to Thailand and China in the past.

First Maddie acquired what the doctor thinks was a ´Disentry Amoeba´. Some kind of parasite that most likely came from Oaxacan Cheese, which we discovered is not pasteurised and is stretched using bare hands and feet. Ewww. Tastes good in a Torta though.

We both suffered a few minor stomach upsets over the next week until we were hit by the big one in San Cristobal, incurring the wrath of the evil food demon ´Salmonella´ the night before we were due to travel onwards to Palenque. Maddie has suffered a little longer than I with ongoing stomach aches and some intermittent vomitting. Mine kind of came and peaked all in the one night, with an intense chilling fever which required an immediate injection to calm it. I´m feeling pretty good now. Maddie not so much, but she´s on the mend.

That was a few days ago and we´re still in San Cristobal. It´s not quite so bad as it might sound. We´ve really just stayed put because a 6 hour trip through winding mountain roads isn´t the first thing we want to do right now.

The hardest thing is trying to eat ´safely´. The night before we got sick, we ate at the classiest restaurant we´ve been to so far in Mexico... and the food wasn´t even Mexican. It´s just so hard to know. That and the fact that most Mexican food comprises of the same basic ingredients jsut arranged in different ways. It´s hard to avoid things like Cheese.

I´d love a roast.

Here´s some photos (not of sick people).