All posts tagged: Vallenato

A Taste of Colombian Medical Care with a splash of Vallenato

It happens to the best of us. Even someone with an iron stomach as myself who prides herself on having the ability to eat everything and anything, gallantly sampling all the delicacies street vendors have to offer will eventually get food poisoning or whatever it was that had me check in at a Colombian clinic in Valledupar. It wasn’t pretty. I had arrived in Valledupar for the famous Festival de la Leyenda Vallenata. A type of Colombian folk music, Vallenato is this country’s pride and joy. I met Bogotans who had travelled on 18-hour busses to attend the festival over the weekend. All hotels and hostels were filled to the brim and the town’s streets filled with Colombians in sombreros vueltiaos dancing to never-ending tunes usually played with a trio of accordion, guacharaca, and caja vallenata players. The birthplace of Vallenato, Valledupar is not much of a destination for foreigners. During my three-day stay there I frequently felt as though the few foreigners that I shared a dorm room with in Provincia Hostel were the …