I Almost Died!

The worst things that ever happened to me traveling solo.

I definitely defied societies “normal” expectations when I decided to quit my full-time job to travel full-time. Everybody thought I was crazy. Everyone thought I was STUPID for giving up a good “steady” job and everyone thought I was going to get hurt or something bad was going to happen to me. Some even blatantly said I might die (which this is always great to hear from family members.) I’m excited so share 3 stories of the worst things that ever happened to me traveling solo.

I will say, when I decided to travel by myself, I was definitely scared. I was going completely outside my comfort zone, but I did it! I did it!!! I’m so happy I didn’t let others tell me otherwise and traveling ended up being one of the best things I ever did for myself. Don’t worry. Still traveling. Just not full-time anymore ;).

Everyone always talks about the bad. It’s a shame how there can be a great story and a bad story sitting right next to each other and the bad story is what gets told 99% of the time. Not only that, but so many people are scared of the unknown. Many people live happy knowing what they are going to do day after day, week after week and month after month. There is a sense of security there.

I am not like that! I feel my brain turns into mush. I need new. I need adventure. I need excitement into my life. Yes, being outside my comfort zone scares me. But it’s when one is outside of their comfort zone when one begins to LIVE!!! Doing the same thing year after year and calling it life? I mean, is that much of a life?

So here’s the thing. People feed off of negativity. 1 bad thing happens in Hawaii (recently a girl almost died there) and now Hawaii is unsafe?Literally millions of people travel there every year and we hear 1 bad story and everyone panics. This happens everywhere. I’m just bringing up Hawaii because there was just a recent story how the girl broke her leg and survived in the wild for 3 weeks. She wrote a book on it and everything. So in the end it ended up being a positive story which I love! But that usually doesn’t happen.

We never hear about the millions of people who go anywhere and have a great time. I love happy endings I don’t know about you guys. Apparently good stories don’t sell though. We hear about the few who have had detrimental things happen to them and then fear gets stowed upon us (sad face.) No wonder why everyone thinks of the worst.

Can bad things happen? Of course it can. Here’s another point that even I brought up to my family. Don’t worry, I’m going to share how I almost died in just a second… There is more of a chance dying on the way to work in a car crash than some spontaneous death from traveling. And guess what? I would much rather die from doing something that I loved than drive to my mundane work and die in a car crash.

Now to me almost dying lol. There were a few “bad” things that have happened to me from my own carelessness and not from my own carelessness. I will say the list is far greater of bad things happening to me that were completely in my control. To be completely vulnerable here, I think I can only think of 1 time to where something bad happened that wasn’t in my control.

Lets start with my own bad decisions because that always more fun lol.

I’m a budget traveler. I’m always on the hunt for the best deal, the cheapest way for transportation, accommodation and cheapest travel agencies if I have to book a tour.

Did you catch that? “If I have to book a tour.” Ding Ding Ding we have a winner!!!!

In my experience and you may have experienced this too, sometimes you don’t need a tour. I have visited so many places that were perfectly safe where there were tour groups. I also witnessed and met many tourists, travelers, people that were upset when they got to their destination and saw that so many people were fine doing the tour independently. They were perfectly safe and saved money. So I’ve always kept my eyes open on this. Why spend money when you don’t have to right?

But I think I was getting a little too comfortable doing tours by myself. I came across this one tour in Nicaragua where it was “advised” to go with a tour group but not “required.” I was like, OK!!!!! Vamanos by myself lol. No questions asked.

Bad Idea!!! However, how was I suppose to know though. The term “advised” is so loose. I have been on tours where it was “advised” and the trip was perfectly safe. So tip #1 for you (do your homework.)

Lesson #1 for me (do my homework when it says “advised.” So this tour would have probably been one of my favorite tours in all 3 months I was in all of Central America for. It was so beautiful and fun and amazing.

You go down with a guide (GO WITH A GUIDE) to this river. There are no signs so it’s definitely helpful with a guide. I just followed everyone else. You also can rent this inner tube. You float down this river that is in a canyon with steep high walls on each side of you. So there really isn’t much of a way out. It’s called the Somoto Canyon if you ever want to check it out.

At some point your supposed to get out of the river which is where my wonderful story comes in. I wasn’t with a guide and there was no clear exit points. I must have passed them. There weren’t any signs entering the water so it makes sense there were no signs exiting the water. There was no clear path either.

But I didn’t know. So I’m going and going and floating and floating and after a while I realized that I didn’t see anyone for a while. So I kept going. Aren’t I super smart. I was starting to be aware though. So I’m keeping my eyes open looking around, listening to my surroundings, seeing if I can pick up a voice.

Nothing. I see nothing. I hear nothing. Then the sun is escaping me. For anyone that has been in a gorge before knows that the sunlight doesn’t last long. There’s one gorge in Colorado where the gorge is so steep that the sunlight only lasts for an hour. Thank God I wasn’t in Colorado! It lasted more than an hour but it was still a gorge.

So sun was disappearing, I was soaked to the bone. With the sun I wasn’t cold, but I could already feel the coldness creeping up on me as the night drew near. I realized if I was already starting to feel the cold with just a little of the sun disappearing that there would be a 99.9% chance of Hypothermia if I didn’t get out there. Also, I have no idea how to survive a canyon at night with no light or food or even knowing which animals come out at night. Also if it rains, I’m dead. I’m in a canyon. Can you say flash flood?

So yes, I started to panic. Even though that’s the last thing you’re suppose to do. OMG, I remember to this day (years later) how petrified I was.

I finally reassessed my surroundings. I knew I couldn’t go back. I didn’t have enough time but I knew I had to get out of there. I remembered not the whole way was staggering steep canyon walls. I mean it never turned into a valley or anything but there were parts that may have been able to climb out of.

So that’s exactly what I did. I kept going as fast as I could until I found a part of the canyon wall that could be climbed. The canyon (river) went into more of a mountainous part. So I climbed up that mountain and got the hell out of there.

Now, the part of Nicaragua I was in was rural. I walked up the mountain ledge and when I reached the top it leveled off and there was a rural road. This road I remember was not very busy but there was some action on it because (now this isn’t very safe either) I got picked up by a Nicaraguan family and I sat in the back of a pick-up truck and they safely brought me to town.

I was so relieved. For all I knew, I just got myself out of a sticky situation and put myself into another sticky situation. Thankfully that did not happen and I was safely at my hostel.

So all that could have been 100% avoided if I used my mind and was aware.

For more info on the Somoto Canyon, click here.

ONTO THE NEXT ONE!!!

I’ll give you another story that could have been avoided (much shorter of a story.) I fell asleep on a bus. Don’t do that! This is actually really weird for me because I have such a hard time sleeping on buses and airplanes and everything.

So the bus goes to the end of the line. That’s how long I fell asleep for. The bus stops in a small town (completely dark.) It’s a town not advised for tourists. It said it right in my manual book. I literally had to ask the bus driver where I was. I didn’t know where the end of the line was.

Once he told me, I was like “great.” I get off and of course the first thing I do is try to find a hotel, a hostel, anything. Usually I try to find the cheapest. Not this night. I just wanted to find the closest. So I found one in my manual and it was several blocks away. I think about 6 if I remember correctly.

Let’s just say I picked up some locals along the way. They were following me. One guy was literally right behind me. He was so close I could feel his breath on my neck. I kept quickly turning around. Trying to scare him off. It wasn’t working. I was walking as fast as I could but that wasn’t working either. I had bear spray (yes I carry bear spray with me everywhere!) Even where there isn’t bears. It works better than pepper spray. It shoots like 15 feet. Although it doesn’t do much help when it’s in your backpack.

Eventually a really nice local came along and took the bad guys away. He helped me. He saved me and wanted nothing in return. He just took the group, told them to leave me alone and they listened. Someone was looking out for me that night. I basically ran the rest of the way to the hotel and locked myself in there. Came out in the morning the next day and took the first bus out of there.

LAST STORY!!!

I’m going to tell you 1 more story where it was outside of my control and I think this is the only incident that happened to me that I could not have predicted. Every other “bad” occurrence that happened to me was from my own stupidity.

I was staying at a nice town where most travelers stay and has a low crime rate. Even the hostel I stayed at had high ratings or at least OK ratings. I had several men beating on my door that night trying to “take me” and the only person who knew I was alone was the person working at the hostel and he was the only one who knew what room I was staying in.

Remember me having bear spray. I stayed up right at the door so if they did come in, I was ready for them. That bear spray would have blinded them all. At least for a minute. Enough time for me to hopefully run away. At least that was the best plan I could come up with.

It must not have been as safe as I thought though because there was a lock inside the room. Like a bolt lock. So for them to get inside the door, they would have had to take an Axe to the door itself.

Recap… traveling is so safe as long as you use your head. Don’t do what I do!!! Learn from my mistakes!!! I have other stories but I’ll save those for another time 🙂

To get these pics, I used this camera. It’s my Olympus tough! Super durable, waterproof, dust proof…

Well, thank you for reading! If you have any questions you can always ask.

Livingonthedirt / Shelly 🙂