Love in the Time of NO Cholera

Another great thing about Mexico City - tons of wonderful tourism opportunities are always waiting just around the corner! For example, if you wanted to see a 5-block radius of medical schools, clinics, research institutes and laboratories, all you have to do is get off at the metro stop Colegio Militar and wander around. Don't forget your camera!

[Rolls eyes].

It all started with an innocent trip to get vaccinated for yellow fever. Matt and I are heading to Peru and Bolivia (and paying the $100 visa, calm down Madre) this Monday and need the proper shots to enter the country. Monday night I headed to a free clinic nearby, which pointed me to the Tropical Illness Institute. So that's where I went today, only to find out that the institute had changed its name and stopped providing vaccines...like 20 years ago. They directed me to a pharmaceutical lab, who directed me to a university biological sciences school, who directed me back to the defunct institute, who directed me to Tlapan (didn't go there, it's 1.5 hours towards the south). Eventually I walked into a small family health clinic and asked the lady at the front desk. She told me the ONLY place to get these types of vaccines is in a clinic in Condesa, the borough directly next to mine.

Three hours later, the rest went surprisingly smooth. After traveling across the city to Condesa and accidentally walking into an AIDS clinic and asking for my vaccine, I arrived at the public health clinic Dr. Angel Brioso Vasconselos, on Calle Benjamin Hill 14. I forked over a copy of my passport and some 200-odd pesos and walked into the doctor's office. She first asked me to leave the clinic, walk around the corner to a street vendor and buy a bottle of water. When I came back, she pricked me in the arm with some yellow fever goodness and popped an Alka Seltzer-type tablet into a cup with my bottled water...cuz I don't want no cholera. She didn't giggle when I praised the tablet's strawberry flavor, but she did promise I might get some intestinal "discomfort" as a result of the pill.

To wrap this up, sometimes I hate Mexico because no one knows where anything is and it isn't necessarily on the Internet. Other times I love it, because at least the last leg of the Tour de Vaccine was quick and, most importantly, cheap. I don't think the Tour is in any Frommer's or Lonely Planet guidebook, so you might just have to wander around aimlessly near Colegio Militar to get the full experience.