I found out early on that Lima in incredibly humid. After returning from such high altitudes in the field and getting settled in damp Lima, I developed a pretty bad sinus infection.
One evening after work I went to the pharmacy near my house to ask for some sinus medicine...thinking that they would give me the Peruvian equivalent of Tylenol Cold or something. After examining my face and asking me many questions, the pharmacist filled my bag with about 20 pills. I decided I should wait to start taking them until I had some people in my office tell me that they were, indeed, sinus medicines.
They next day at work my boss, Paquita snatched the bag of medicine from me and told me that most "pharmacists" in Peru have no actual training and merely work behind the counter and that I was not to take anything she had sold me.
That afternoon one of my co-workers took me to the clinic near our house, owned by a friend's husband. The doctor looked at the pills and told me that none were antibiotics and that one of them was a very strong painkiller - lesson learned. The doctor put a head-lamp on, had me tilt my head back and peered into my nose to see about the problem...he then motioned to my coworker (who I'd only known for about 2 weeks at this point) to come over and have a look. There I sat, in a reclined chair with an ear, nose & throat doctor and my coworker staring into my nose, discussing in Spanish what appeared to be the problem. It turns out I had a sinus infection, and some congestion (I'd tried to tell them that this happens in Canada too, and really, I would be OK!). He prescribed me some antibiotics (with names I actually recognized) and I gave him my little bag of goodies from the pharmacist as a gift.
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