Welcome to the Once Upon a Trip podcast, where we dive deep into sharing everything
crazy travel stories, dating adventures, culture fusions, and plenty of takeaways to entertain
and feed your inner curiosity and travel bug.
I'm your host, Mary Grace Crawford, travel enthusiast, content creator, ex-Digital Nomad,
avid storyteller, and lover of all things Europe, based now in Atlanta, Georgia.
In light of an upcoming Columbia trip that I will be taking next week with Marco and
some of our good friends, the first week of November, I thought I'd take some time for
today's episode to share a more detailed, candid version of my first night in Medellin,
Colombia story, which is a really crazy and embarrassing one.
If you're on Instagram and you follow my podcast account at once upon a trip dot PC, you may
have already seen my Beware of Colombian Aguardiente real and have a little snippet of the main
parts of this wild story.
If you haven't seen it, you can go and check it out on Instagram and you'll see what I
mean.
If you're in for some entertainment, vulnerability, transparency, and learning all of what exactly
not to do, especially when you're traveling solo, then this episode is for you.
Just a big disclaimer that I do need to throw in here, I am not in any sort of way trying
to endorse my decisions made in this story and you should absolutely not do what I did.
I was really irresponsible and got super, super, super lucky in my certain situation,
which you'll learn more details about in a little bit.
I really do understand that there are so many other people who go to another country and
don't end up lucky like I did.
So be responsible, take care of yourself and learn from this story, but don't copy.
Next week, my friends and I will be going to Cartagena, a different part of Colombia.
I'm feeling really pumped and excited, but hopefully won't be back here sharing a similar
crazy story with Colombian Agualdiente and bad decisions there that we're going to be
diving into.
With that being said, grab yourself a drink, be it a coffee or tea, if it's the morning
time for you, or a glass of wine or a beer, if it's the afternoon or evening now, I think
you'll be getting a kick out of this.
Let's go ahead and start getting into all of the intricate details of this crazy first
night in Medellin, Colombia story.
I went to Colombia in January, 2023 for four days and I went solo.
This was the last really big solo trip that I took before meeting Marco and it went out
with a bang.
I went from Atlanta to Medellin via Fort Lauderdale, Florida and left at about five in the morning.
I met a couple of really great Colombians at the Fort Lauderdale airport during my layover.
They kept me good company and told me that if I needed anything in Medellin to please
call them because they'd love to help.
The Colombian warm spirit right there.
I got to Medellin at about 3.30 in the afternoon and had barely eaten anything all day.
I had planned to eat in Fort Lauderdale, but because of constantly talking to Colombians
during that whole layover, I only had a couple of coffees.
There was no food on the flight because I took Spirit Airlines, AKA as Marco calls them,
Banana Airlines, the cheap airline carrier here in the US.
So here I am now at the Medellin airport on a nearly empty stomach and I'm standing in
immigration.
It took forever to get through, probably an hour and 20 minutes.
It took longer than I had planned.
I think I booked a driver in advance.
That driver was waiting for me for a good while and by the time I got out of immigration,
it was nearly five in the afternoon.
He spoke a little English and I spoke only a little Spanish, but we communicated with
each other clearly enough.
The driver and I got in the car and we started heading for my Airbnb.
I had booked a food tour in Medellin for seven in the evening.
By now it's about 5.15.
I had less than two hours to scramble, get to my Airbnb that I had booked and go into
town ready to join this food tour.
I guess that's also why I hadn't been bothered for not eating so much, but little did I know
what was coming that night.
The first thing I noticed when riding in the car in Medellin was how super rain foresty
and mountainy it looked and how it had a sprinkle of palm trees everywhere.
It felt so tropical, cozy and just great.
It started raining pretty hard in the afternoon and basically every afternoon at the same
time after that.
And it was kind of cool to see the lush green rain forest like landscape with these little
shacks as stores and shops on the sides of the road.
So I'm talking banana market stalls, Coca Cola and snack stalls, like that sort of thing.
It definitely felt different and foreign compared to what I had known in the US.
I loved the different environment and adventure.
I got dropped off at my Airbnb, which was really nice and a modern high rise with about
20 ish floors.
I was staying in a studio with an amazing view of the Medellin city landscape and mountains
right outside my window.
Just what I was going for.
I got the keys from the owner, got inside the Airbnb.
It was already a little past six o'clock or so.
By the time I had finished some paperwork and got settled in, I was starving, but didn't
want to eat too much before a food tour because why would we eat before a food tour?
I went to a floor of the building that had a little cafe.
I struggled to communicate with the baristas with my terrible Spanish.
Their equally terrible English was another strike against me, but I did eventually get
the baristas to grab me a protein bar and a cappuccino since I didn't see anything else
there that really appealed to me.
I then went in the elevator, made this short selfie video talking about how much my Spanish
sucks.
Literally while I'm going up the elevator, I'm doing this, got back to my room and then
I started getting ready.
Makeup, proper clothes for going out, all that good stuff.
Since I understood in advance that Colombians and Colombian girls especially dress very
well and I wanted to fit in that way, I managed to order an Uber on Airbnb wifi to ride into
the downtown part of Medellin for the food tour and it was pouring down rain again.
My brown leather flats that I was wearing that night were already soaked before getting
to the tour, but I made it to the tour meeting point on time miraculously.
In this food tour group, there was me and a group of about seven other people from all
sorts of different places.
There was one other American from California, from Laguna Beach, a guy from Germany but
living in London, a French Canadian guy from Montreal, two Brazilians, one local Colombian
girl and the tour guide who was a really cool laid back local Colombian guy from Medellin.
Like I said earlier at the beginning of this story, I went solo and I was single.
So it was natural for me to be scanning the guys and checking them out.
With that being said, there were two guys on this tour who I thought were really cute.
One being the German guy living in London and the other being the French Canadian from
Montreal.
However, right from the get go, I just happened to be standing closer, like literally right
next to the German guy and we just got to talking a little faster than with the French
Canadian guy.
This German guy sounded so dreamy when he spoke because he spoke with this very British
accent.
So living in London, I understand why he spoke this way and he was very well spoken and interesting.
I don't even remember what all we talked about, but we just really clicked and we were right
next to each other on the entire food tour.
We hit up a number of local food places in Medellin and had a really good sampling of
stuff.
Colombian arepas, which are these basically very thick flat breads made of corn flour,
which are amazing.
Colombian buñuelos, these chocolate stuffed fried dough balls, among other delicious foods
that I can't really remember exactly now.
But they were really, really small portions.
They didn't fill me up that much at all.
And remember, I hadn't eaten much all day up to that point.
We were all getting kind of soaked since it was raining on and off, but there I was getting
kind of soaked with this German guy.
We were always splitting and sharing whatever food we were trying on the tour together.
At some point, we all end up at a little bar that we can grab a drink at and try something
local if we wanted.
This tour guide, like I said, was really chill and go with the flow.
So he did what we wanted.
I sat across this small table from German guy and what does he do?
He orders this massive bottle of Colombian aguardiente, which if you are not aware of
what this is, it is poison.
No, I'm just kidding.
But basically it's a lot like tequila.
If I had to compare it to anything very smooth, when you take a sip like water, so agua, but
then it burns like this potent fire diente.
Once you swallow and it goes down your throat, hence the name aguardiente water fire.
Basically is what it's called.
Anyway, German guy orders this massive bottle of aguardiente and asks for a bunch of shot
glasses since you know, the more the merrier.
I will go ahead and say here is my first mistake that I made.
The local Colombian girl in the group actually said to someone else about aguardiente, be
very, very careful.
This is very strong.
You only need a little of this, but what does my dumb ass in flirty mode over German guy
do?
I completely underestimate what she says about the aguardiente.
I took one sip of it and it really didn't seem all that strong like she was saying,
at least not until it hit my throat.
I knew intuitively that I probably should listen to Colombian girl, but I wanted to
appear like a bad ass to this German guy since many Germans drink a lot and this guy I could
tell was one of them.
I was just like, you know what?
I came all the way here to Columbia and I'm only here for four days.
I'm going to make the most of this trip and this night.
Yolo.
And I just took a shot whenever this German guy took one.
We then took one shot as a group of seven or eight with the tour guide in addition to
whatever shots I took with this German guy.
By the end of that part of the tour, I had already taken at least four shots of this
Colombian aguardiente on a not super full stomach and icing on the cake.
I'm more of a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, but none of this really hit me until
quite a bit later that evening.
After we go to this bar and have these aguardiente shots, we move to a rooftop bar nearby since
that's what we all wanted to do.
I was feeling lit, but not that lit just yet.
I'm still there with German guy and we're grabbing even more drinks.
He asked me what I want.
I tell him that I'm feeling like a frozen margarita.
So he goes up to the bar, he gets me a frozen Marg, he grabs the same and I'm just there
having a ball because this rooftop bar with the beautiful serene mountain landscape and
lights everywhere in Medellin are so romantic and beautiful.
Then when you throw drinks and then you throw some cute person in there with that, Mwah,
shabskis.
At some point I finished that frozen Marg and I returned the favor to German guy.
So I go up to the bar and I get him and myself a second round.
You can kind of see where this is going.
The icing on the cake was there was a hookah station at this rooftop bar.
The other American from California and Colombian girl in the group were passing it around.
And again, I was like, YOLO, whatever.
So I inhaled a few whiffs of some hookah also.
Your girl Mary Grace then really was lit and it was showing.
I was taking all sorts of stupid videos of myself jumping up and down and getting crazy
for a while.
And then I finally took a bar stool seat and just sat there.
I started instantly realizing at some point.
Yeah, I have had a little too much to drink because I'm starting to feel sick.
I really need to throw up.
I remember getting off that bar stool seat, walking and stumbling and again feeling super
sick.
I then took a seat nearby this couch.
Colombian girl was near me this entire time, came up to me and said, Oh honey, honey, are
you okay?
And before I knew it, I really was throwing up.
I don't remember whether or not there was a trash can nearby.
I really in my subconscious hope that there was, but I then went to the girl's bathroom
and that's one of the last things I remember.
And once again, reiterating this, I am telling you all of this, not for you to copy.
This is so irresponsible and stupid.
The next thing I remember is waking up the next day in a totally foreign, but very clean,
peaceful Airbnb studio in the middle of beautiful midi.
But it wasn't mine.
I woke up with clean white sheets on me completely alone in this cozy, pretty big bed sleeping
on top of my passport and phone with an empty trash can next to me.
It was probably about six 30 in the morning when I woke up.
I looked around and thought, of course, uh, where am I?
I then look across this small Airbnb studio room.
I see a guy sleeping and slowly starting to wake up on the couch that was directly across
the room.
It wasn't the German guy from the tour.
It was the French Canadian guy from Montreal.
The second of the two guys on the tour that I thought were cute.
This was his Airbnb.
And of course, I'm just like, Oh my God, what the actual hell did something happen
last night?
I have so many questions.
Like what is this?
French Canadian guy woke up a few minutes after he realized that I was awake and he,
along with WhatsApp voice messages from the tour guide, basically told me everything that
happened the night before and why I was there in his Airbnb.
This is what he and the tour guide told me.
The tour guide sent me voice messages to wake up to and said in those messages that he hopes
I feel okay.
He and French Canadian guy said that I basically went to the girls bathroom at some point on
my own.
That part I remember.
He said that everyone in the group noticed that I was gone for a long time and they wanted
to check on me to make sure that I was okay in the bathroom.
One of the other guys on the tour said that apparently there were two random girls who
were trying to get into that bathroom that I went into, but the door was locked and they
couldn't get in.
So they got someone who worked there to basically punch the door open to get inside and there
I was basically sleeping on the bathroom ground.
One of the girls working at this rooftop bar helped take me out of the bathroom and moved
me to a couch out in the open and she tried to give me water, but I just threw up even
more.
Then eventually the food tour people wanted to take an Uber and go home and get me back
safely to my Airbnb, but the problem is they did not know where I was staying.
So French Canadian guy offered to take me into his Airbnb to make sure that I was safe
for the night and I was told by both the tour guide and French Canadian guy that following
morning that the German guy I was with was definitely not helpful at all.
Apparently the German guy started freaking out the second he saw that I was throwing
up and unfortunately I must have gotten a little vomit TMI on my blouse and he didn't
want to touch me at all.
He wanted nothing to do with this and basically peaced out.
That's when French Canadian guy told me never to speak to German douchebag guy again because
he didn't care to help and was literally there whining, complaining and freaking out, not
wanting to touch or move me.
There is actually a photo and of course I can't publish this anywhere of all of us from
the food tour in the elevator mirror after leaving for the night and the French Canadian
guy is shown in this picture basically holding my entire body weight because I'm passed out
and German guy is purposely cut out of the shot, not laying a finger on me.
The French Canadian guy was the one who took me in and didn't care about a little vomit
because there I was this naive stupid girl who drank too much and just needed a little
help.
The tour guide ended his voice messages to me with he is sorry for this ending to the
night and that he just wants to make sure I'm okay because to a great degree I was under
his responsibility.
I also apologized to him saying I'm so sorry, it's really not your fault, it's mine.
The reason I was sleeping on top of my passport is because when the French Canadian guy took
me into his Airbnb from the Uber, the check-in people needed some form of ID on me to be
able to let me stay there and he used my passport in my purse.
I guess he didn't know where to put it or he didn't think to put it back in the purse
so he just put it under my pillow.
The empty trash can next to me was just in case I threw up even more but I didn't.
French Canadian guy let me have his entire bed and he slept on his couch directly across
the room so I really swear nothing happened at all that night between us, nothing bad,
nothing promiscuous, nor ever in the following days of that Columbia trip to follow.
I had realized that morning that one of my earrings was missing and my phone charger
was also missing but luckily I still had my purse, my wallet, with all my credit cards,
my passport, and my phone, the most important things.
I was really in awe of all of this shit that happened because of me being irresponsible
and naive and I really do mean it when I say that I was extremely lucky to have been taken
in by someone who wasn't malicious or with bad intentions.
I was extremely fortunate also that the tour guide cared enough to check in on me the next
day and make sure that I was okay and that he figured that I would be confused when I
woke up.
This could have gone a totally different way had I not been out on this food tour with
other people and if no one had cared about me at all.
The ending thing with the German guy was definitely a bummer and he showed his true colors real
fast but he ended up leaving on a 6 a.m. flight to a whole other part of Columbia anyway that
morning so that wasn't ever meant to be something lasting anyway.
French Canadian guy and I end up grabbing breakfast together at a local spot in Medellin
before we set off to one of the biggest tourist places around the city for the day, Guatapé.
I had actually been scheduled to meet early with a personal tour guide to go to Guatapé
but because of what happened I had forgotten and didn't show up to that and ended up going
on my own tour with French Canadian guy who apparently hadn't had plans for the day.
We took the local bus from Medellin to Guatapé, climbed up 725 steps to see this gorgeous
lush water and green landscape among the overcrowded chaos of other tourists, rode horses for a
while around Pignol Rock which is right in the Guatapé area, grabbed Colombian street
food at some local market stalls and ended up seeing each other a couple of more times
for dinner during my short remaining time in Columbia.
I eventually lost touch with French Canadian guy since he was on an extended work break
in Montreal and decided to stay in Columbia for two or three more months and we just went
our separate ways when I returned to the US but I do still remember the luckiness I experienced
on this wild night very much thanks to French Canadian guy and the other wonderful people
minus German guy on my Medellin food tour.
What I hope you got out of this crazy episode today is really not to let the euphoria of
a short-lived trip or any person for that matter, no matter how into that person you
may be in the moment, get the best of you and your judgment and safety.
I made so many mistakes on this first night that could have been avoided from eating a
little more earlier in the day by packing some snacks to munch on at airports, to taking
Colombian girls advice about Colombian aguadiente a little more seriously, to not taking more
than a shot or two of aguadiente to start with and to really not rely on the luck and
goodness of these other people in my food tour group to take care of my irresponsible
choices.
There has never been another time on any other trip that I have ever taken where I have done
something this crazy, luckily, and once was definitely more than enough.
Moral of the story, again, take care of yourself.
This now wraps up today's crazy and embarrassing episode of Once Upon a Trip.
If you enjoyed this story and learned a little something, please take a minute to give this
show a five-star review and share with anyone you know who may need a little extra entertainment
and wake up call in their day.
Let me know your additional comments and feedback on either my podcast IG handle at OnceUponATrip.PC
or on my host account at MaryGraceCrawford.
Thank you so much as always for tuning in and listening all the way up to now if you're
still here.
I can't wait once again to be tuning in with you next Tuesday for another fun, adventurous
trip.