But there is one incident that remains forever emblazoned in my memory. It was the only time I courted disaster, and disaster returned the courtship ring in a spew of fetid matter beyond my body's capacity to control. I shall recount it here.
It was back in 1992, when I made my fourth trip to the beautiful Himalayan country of Nepal. My travel companion was a friend from my previous job at a science museum and the perfect good-natured hiking buddy. The magic of this land in southwest Asia had enchanted us. We had spent a week in Kathmandu and surrounding areas, hiking, walking, and eating local food with no health repercussions. Then we went to Pokhara, in western Nepal, and hiked for days in the foothills that ring the snowy Himalayas -- Annapurna, Machapuchare -- at altitudes of 9,000 feet.
We returned in fine spirits, spent a few days poking around the bazaar in Kathmandu, and then decided to take a shorter, more relaxed hike around the Kathmandu Valley. So we hired a local guide and porters to lead us on a three-day walk into the hills and villages surrounding the valley.
The morning of the trip, as we ate breakfast in the small $10-a-night hotel, I had my first inklings that there was a sea change going on in my digestive tract. I had that vague malaise feeling as I sipped my tea and nibbled on dry toast. "Damn," I thought. "I better not be coming down with a bug."
We'd been careful to wipe down silverware with alcohol swabs, to use water purification tablets, to buy bottled spring water, to eat fruits that had thick peels, to swab edible fruit skins with alcohol, to wash our hands and to keep them out of our mouths, noses, and eyes -- the whole hygiene we learned in Girl Scouts and Home Ec. This was, after all, a developing nation, and cleanliness was an issue when it came to street vendors and unwashed surfaces. Just a day before, my friend and I had sat high on the steps of a Hindu temple in Durbar Square and watched a man drag a freshly-butchered hog, draped over a rickshaw, across the stone pavement, leaving a trail of blood and gore behind. We'd also seen men peeing in the corners of the market area, taking dumps in the alleys (sans toilet paper), spitting on the stone steps, and blowing snot out of their noses onto the streets. It made us wary of everything we touched.
But we'd remained unscathed for nearly a month, and I was not ready to accept that I could contract any ailment at this stage of the journey. Using the power of denial, I decided to go ahead with the trip. We'd paid in advance, and I didn't want to back out. We took a cab to the edge of the valley, backpacks at the ready, and met our guides in a small village at the base of the Himalayan foothills.
It was a splendid day. Clear skies. Autumn daytime temperatures in the sub-tropical country were in the pleasant 70s and low 80s. Perfect for a journey up to a picturesque village above a Buddhist monastery in the mountains. With our Sherpa, Newari, and Gurung porters watching us expectantly, my friend and I hoisted our packs and prepared to set out.
Then the alarm bells went off in the recesses of my gut. Nausea flooded every inch of my gastrointestinal system, from esophagus to rectal sphincter. It was as though a cement mixer had pulled up, inserted a spout into my mouth and anus, and started pumping thick sludge into my body. I started to panic as I felt the horror of a simultaneous surge: I was about to erupt from both my mouth and my butt. A veritable Mount Vesuvius of vomit and crap.
What to do? There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. We were standing in the middle of a village, with thatch-roofed adobe homes surrounding us. The only object even remotely resembling an outhouse was a large haystack to my right, in front of one of the humble houses.
As my gorge surged in both directions, I made a dash toward the back of that house; but I got only as far as the outhouse before a projectile stream of barf exploded from my mouth and into the stack. At the same moment, a scalding river of white-hot liquid poop shot from my sphincter, finding temporary lodgings in my underwear. I continued my bolt behind the house, leaving my friend and a circle of bewildered locals to draw their conclusions. In back of the house were a few straggly shrubs and trees and a small hillside overlooking more houses. No one was there. Good. I pulled off my pack, squatted to remove the soiled clothes, and dragged out a plastic bag, a box of tissues, some wet wipes, and a clean pair of skivvies. Thank goodness the poop hadn't seeped through the nylon hiking undies -- my pants were spared.
I began the grim task of cleanup. Halfway through, I looked up to see a young boy standing a few yards away, staring at me in blank-faced curiosity. My guess was that he was amazed that foreigners pooped just like he did; or maybe he was wondering why someone would crap in his neighbor's backyard. I mean, how rude is that? I felt bad about it, but...
When I finally came waddling out from my ablutions, my friend and the now-perplexed guides and porters were pacing around. I felt a lot better after voiding the noxious mix of body fluids and semi-solids; but I was still rocky. We decided to return to the hotel, where just one antibiotic pill completely purged the evil E. coli that had plagued my bowels. I discreetly disposed of the plastic bag containing a bounty of loathsome thing: the soiled underwear and the box of wipes and Kleenex that restored dignity to my diarrhea-slathered exit door.
To this day I marvel at the power of projectile vomit and poop, the natural wonder of the body's ability to forcibly evict offending substances that threaten its wellbeing. I just wish that I had heeded the signal it had tried to send me earlier that day that an emergency evacuation was imminent.