March 19, 2004 -- At the Ritz-Carlton Cancun, the service is impeccable. The wines are fine, and grand towers of bottled water crown the bed tables in each room. Because, no matter how perfectly luxurious an atmosphere the Ritz sets up within their hotel, they're still stuck with the Mexican water system -- and the threat of Montezuma's Revenge.
Most travelers just buy the bottled water -- we did. But for budget travelers who don't want to shell out a few dollars a pop and adventurous travelers heading to destinations without bottles, we've found a great gadget: the MIOX purifier from Mountain Safety Research (www.msrcorp.com). The size of a jumbo roll of Life-Savers, it neutralizes bacteria and viruses to make almost all water safe to drink.
Filtering Vs. Purifying
There are several ways to make nasty water nicer.
Water Filters pump water through ultra-fine membranes; on the way, organic and inorganic nasties get caught on the membranes and are filtered out. Most filters also include a carbon layer like your home Brita pitcher, which improves the taste. Filtering turns dirty water clean and knocks out many bugaboos, but can't clean out viruses, which are too small for the filter. Also, filters can be bulky, and you have to pump.
Smart hikers and backpackers combine their filters with an iodine- or chlorine-based treatment solution, which is fatal to viruses and the bacteria the filters don't catch. Chemically treated water can taste pretty bad, but the carbon layer of a water filter helps make it palatable.
The MIOX uses a new way of purifying water, and it can seem a little like magic. You put salt in the top of the unit, fill a tiny cell with untreated water, shake the unit, and press a button. Suddenly, the water fizzes and turns white. You then dump the newly-made treatment solution into your bottle of water (it can treat between a pint and a gallon at a time) and, after half an hour, your water should be clean.
The electrical zap creates, among other things, hypochlorous acid, which is the component in chlorine solutions that kills water-borne bugs. But the MIOX solution doesn't have the characteristic taste or stench of chlorine, a big plus.
Aside from salt, the only thing you need to make the MIOX work is two camera batteries, which can knock out a total of about 200 gallons of water before they need changing.
Pure Mornings
The MIOX purifier has been used by Marines in Afghanistan, and the company's method is used to purify water in a slew of U.S. cities. Both the U.S. military and major aircraft manufacturer Airbus have signed up to use MIOX's "mixed-oxidant" purification method on planes.
Over here, we've been drinking MIOX water all morning as an experiment. The purified water is a little chalky. But it doesn't have the aggressive flavor of water treated with iodine or chlorine; it's about on a par with Los Angeles tap water. More importantly, it doesn't land you in the bathroom for two weeks the way untreated water might.
We give a thumbs-up to the MIOX Purifier, and we're taking it on our next trip to the developing world. It's a relatively easy and low-stress way to make sure your water is safe, and it's small enough to tote around with you wherever you go.
Available at HTO Stores. Visit Frommers for more travel tips at www.frommers.com. |
