What to do When You're Throwing Up on a Bus in Bogota...

Bear in mind, this advice is reserved for those displaying a number of qualities:

1. You are susceptible to viruses

2. You still get on a bus when there's about a 50/50 chance of you (for sure) soiling it

3. You have bad aim while expectorating on bumpy back roads

4. You speak very little Spanish, and can't remember the word for "barf bag" when you need it most

Somehow, I received, downloaded (I don't know what you call it), contracted that little pest of all minor sicknesses...the 12 hour puke out, Chuck fest, Bile-be-Gone Throw Down. It just takes a spark to get a fire going. A spark landed on my kerosene infused logs around 3 o'clock. Prior to that hour, I was enjoying the small vista lake town of Guatavita, Colombia with Sara and some of our friends. Guatavita is a cool little village stuck in time. A dilapidated clock tower keeps the population ticking. Little artisan markets line the streets without being too cumbersome. The locals are content, nice, laid back, and boy can they cook! We had a wonderful HUGE lunch in an old outdoor pavilion, replete with brick ovens and short little ladies cooking in pots on hot stones. Had I foretold my doom at the time of lunch, I would not have eaten that whole fish (yes, head still on). I certainly would not have tried the eyeballs and sucked out all that wet forehead meat. Edwin, my Colombian friend was doing it. And when in Colombia...right? I was satisfied, though. Quite. 

My belly started it's S.O.S. message about two hours afterwards. "Why is this in here?!" it seemed to say. 

"Guys...uh..." I said.

This was the big announcement of my revelation. But you can relate to it, right? When you get this thing, you never really want to admit that you're getting it. And so, before you finish your prognostication, you just say...

"Nah, it'll be fine," and go on your merry way, just keeping back from the group a bit to quietly burp and sputtertoot.

An hour later (while I was keeping back from the group a bit to quietly burp and sputter toot), I began the sweating and the glancing. Looking for distractions. Clouds, sunset, little kids in the market place laughing, old lady crocheting another quilt, anything. This can't be happening to me. Not now.

Fifty-five minutes later, I was sitting on the bus, praying to God it wasn't. But it was. Edwin came with me. The others took the one car we had (without enough space for all of us) to ride back in. Sara offered to come with me for comfort, but she's pregnant, and this little bull of a sickness is something a pregnant woman should never get. It took about forty-five minutes for the first round to surface. Poor Edwin. I just looked at him with that sad, whimpering smirk that says, "Yeah, I'm about to..."

It was a lot--corn, rice, tomato water, fish head wet meat and eyes. I had one bag on me, and I promptly filled it. Some spilled on my jacket and hands, down on my leg. I got some looks and quintessential coughs that really are objecting sneezes. As quiet as I could, I opened the window and threw the bag into the road grass. Laid my head back. Good for now. All Quiet on the Southern Front. Feeling okay. But to my luck, the bus we were in was about 28 years old with wobbly axles. And to my more luck, the road got bumpier. And to my more luck's luck, a man got on the bus around minute 35 after explosion number one with a bag, a bag full of chorizo. Chorizo, or street sausage, is perhaps the lowest grade sausage produced on planet earth (I am sure there is some world out there of Pygmalion Cannibals that has it beat, but we haven't discovered it yet). The defining characteristic of chorizo is its undeniable smell, a smell which nose-rapes all olfactory systems within a block radius...OUTDOORS. I believe it is against the law to bring it into confined spaces without a professional license. I was flabbergasted to the point of humorizing at this point, but aghast beyond as Chorizo man chose the seat directly across the aisle from us. You gotta be kidding me. Edwin just started laughing. I watched in horror as the man reached into his oil translucent paper bag and pulled out a fleshy chunk of pig/rat/foot/hoove meat and shoved it into his mouth. I could hear it pop and squirt. It is at this point in the story where I pride myself by saying that I made it without puking again. And good thing, too, because I forgot (in that moment) the word for "barf bag," and I didn't (in that moment) remember the phrase, "Stop the bus, I'm gonna go!" I made it, barely. Not two steps off the bus at the drop point did I greet the sidewalk with a personal "Puke Happens" Marquis, but I made it.  

Sure I had to hold my head out of the window doing eighty on a bumpy back road. Sure it started to rain as I did so. Sure I looked like a wet-triever half breed in the back of a SilverDollar. But I didn't throw up on that bus again, I tell you. Yes, I will always look back on the event fondly as the night I bested the Chorizo.