This title might seem a little tacky by the time you get to end of this story.

A popular day trip from Medellín is to Guatapé, a colorful resort town located an hour out of the city. My plan was to head to El Peñón de Guatapé, or La Piedra, a gigantic rock that offers an amazing view of the region from above, and then continuing on to explore the town and enjoy a meal before heading back. An ambitious plan considering we woke around noon.

Arriving at the bus terminal we only had a minute to get a quick empanada before the bus departed. As we neared the site, traffic slowed to a stop-and-go-pace. Half an hour later, the driver advised us it’d be quicker to get out and walk. We would later learn that it was a holiday weekend explaining why the area around La Piedra was so packed.

Given the amount of people the walk up was slow but also enjoyable given the reduced pace. At the top we enjoyed an ice cream admiring the stunning view of the lakes below before heading back down (our time management skills already lacking). The crowd at the bottom was even more chaotic. We asked a tuk-tuk driver to take us to town. His response? Nobody’s going to town. And the road is shut. A boat full of 140 tourists had sunk in the lake. 9 were dead, 30 were missing.

My first thought was, “That’s crazy” then: “How am I going to get back in time to catch the night bus?” Part of me also couldn’t believe our bad luck by choosing this Sunday to visit.

But I forgot about all of that when I saw the line of about 300 Colombians presumably going to spend their holiday weekend in Guatapé and now stuck near a rock.

And that whole process for some reason turned into a positive for me. The people behind us and in front of us, two large family groups, were exceedingly pleasant. They were happy to explain, in slow Spanish, what was going on with this mess of a bus situation. Everybody was rather calm despite the chaos, especially the first responders and bus operators trying to corral all of the stranded visitors. A worker at the restaurant flirted with me by trying to help me order food.

So there we were, eating out of a styrofoam take-out container, drinking Aguilas, while standing in line not knowing when we’d be getting on a bus. The sun had set and it had set and it was starting to get rain a little.

I got a nasty bruise to the shin clamoring into the bus but eventually we made it. We returned to worried roommates, explaing the ordeal and marveling at how during the week we had planned to go do a weekend boat party. We could have easily been one of those partygoers on the boat but had woken up too late.

Colombia had been rather eventful so far. What was left in Bogotá?