One of the lessons we learn as college kids is just how easy the tables can turn when you’re drinking. The funniest moments of our college career seem to be when we first start to experiment with the delightful substance known as alcohol.

I found myself on the bad side of alcohol on a road trip from Baltimore to Ecuador (a 45-day road trip spanning all of central America and a butt-ton of states).

We were at a point called the Darién Gap in between Panama and Colombia that basically divides Middle and South America. It’s impossible to cross, so the natural choice is to take a plane or boat ride to get to Colombia.

My friends and I settled on taking a boat over.

A four-day boat trip couldn’t be so bad, right?

When you’re young, you really don’t have many reservations about going hard with alcohol.

The downfall is that in that state of mind, my friends and I didn’t realize that cheap booze and boats are not the best combination.

We set off leaving port on a perfect afternoon. With a rainbow over the water, music blasting and drunken dancing, it couldn’t get any better.

It’s not until after the captain of the tiny sailboat told us that the engine wasn’t capable of over four knots (about five mph) that the fun started to go downhill. I’d never gotten seasick before, but being so drunk with such a slow-moving boat rocking in the ocean, I could feel my soul starting to churn in my stomach.

The worst part about getting seasick and alcohol-sick is not knowing which one is responsible for the world of nausea, puke and dizziness you’re in. When I say I was hurling chunks, I mean hurling chunks.

Having eaten spicy Cheetos beforehand, I realized they tasted spicier coming back up than they did coming down.

Let me tell you that booze and Spicy Cheetos and seasickness = no bueno.

The sight was both horrible and hilarious. My cousins, my friends and I were all on different sections of the boat, all moaning, all puking over the side while trying to somehow carry on normal conversation to hide how bad the situation really was.

One of the worst things when puking is to see someone else’s vom drift right past you and mix with your own. Gross.

Meanwhile, the captain was having a hell of a time, asking us “ You guys done with that Burnetts?”

If I had the energy I would have jumped overboard.

The next four days were a miserable mixture of sunburn, puke and seawater.

A close girlfriend of mine thought she was going to die and drunkenly professed her true love for me amidst groans and sounds of retching. It wasn’t very romantic.

Long story short, we spent four days hurling, to the point where all we had were sounds of retching without the actual throwing up. We had nothing left.

Note to self: boats and booze do not go hand-in-hand.