When the Shit Hits the Fan in Colombia

I’m going to tell you a story before I show you any photos from Barichara or Chicamocha Canyon… A story about how I got food poisoning in Colombia. After Tayrona Park, we decide to go visit Palomino, which is basically a touristy-beach area. The place we stayed was lovely and everything seemed fine but I must’ve eaten something that was bad. We only stayed one night and took a bus back to Santa Marta so we could catch the overnight bus to Bucaramanga, about 8-10 hours.

We had some time to kill at the bus station but by the time came to board, I was feeling uncomfortable and let’s be honest, we all get some gas now and again. I thought for sure thats what I had so I decided to let one loose before hopping on the bus as a curtesy to the other passengers. The moment I did… I knew it was a mistake. There was, in fact, no gas. I had just shit my pants. What. The. Fuck? Oh no! This can’t be happening! I grabbed my bag so quickly and grabbed a change of underwear and ran to the bathroom while the other passengers boarded. I, shamelessly tossed my shitty underwear in the trash and ran back, sweating at this point, hoping that was the end of it. Oh no! Oh no! hahaha…. my night was just getting started.

We board the bus and anyone who has or does travel by bus in South America will tell you, the onboard toilets all have strict urine only rules. Well I broke that rule about 57million times on that overnight trip. I was only on the bus about twenty minutes before I also started throwing up every 20-30 minutes for the entire ride and mixed with my steady flow of diarrhea, by the time I had arrived to Bucaramanga from Santa Marta, I had utterly drained all of my insides on the overnight bus’s toilet.

“Yes, I did in fact shit myself from food poisoning while traveling around Colombia.”

And that ladies and gentlemen is why you always carry an extra pair of underwear! It took me days to recover and that was with the help of the amazing hostel I stayed at Sam’s Hostel and Jorge, my boyfriend at the time, who had gone to the pharmacy to get me medicine and brought me soup and water to sip on. I am convinced that whatever made me sick was meat but I couldn’t hardly eat any meat-anything for the next month or so. I will tell you though that despite my woozy and nauseous state I still rallied and went paragliding in Chicamocha Canyon a couple days later. It definitely didn’t make anything better but I wasn’t about to miss this opportunity and the views were amazing!

So on that note I will leave you all to enjoy some lovely photos & video from Barichara, Guane & Chicamocha Canyon, Colombia, and don’t forget kids, shit happens and you won’t always be prepared for it. You just gotta learn to roll with it…