The Journey and the Destination

With many of their holidays, the Colombians have a wonderful system of creating long weekends. When a holiday doesn't naturally fall on a Monday, they move the day off to the following Monday. So while the public holiday of San Pedro y San Pablo (Saint Peter and Saint Paul) was actually on June 29th, it was July 5th that became a day off of work. Well in advance, Katie had proposed the idea of going to Islas de San Bernardo for some sun and snorkeling. I was up for pretty much anything, and after a quick search for pictures online, Don was definitely on board. Islas de San Bernardo is a group of 10 archipelagos located south of Cartagena, a favourite among Colombians on vacation and less traveled by foreign tourists. As Katie pointed out, the Lonely Planet guide (LP) describes the islands as "far superior" in comparison to Islas del Rosario, an archipelago much closer to Cartagena. Who were we to not believe a statement like that from our trusty LP?

Our Fridays come with the added perk of not only being the last day of the week, but also the day that our office closes early. So the weekend venture started out on Friday afternoon, making our way to the bus terminal in Cartagena. We'd checked the LP to figure out which bus to catch on which road, but unfortunately misjudged which side of the road to catch it on. A mistake which cost us a small chunk of time, but toured us around other parts of the city. We made it to the terminal and started asking companies if they had buses to Tolú, the city we would head to San Bernardo from (note: when I make references to talking to people or asking questions, 90% of the time it's Don talking, 9.9% Katie and about 0.1% me). Someone overheard us asking about Tolú, and brought us outside to a waiting bus that would get us there in about 3.5 hours. Not too shabby considering at one point the bus made a slightly unhealthy noise and then slowed to a halt. I never found out what happened, but it wasn't long before we were up and running again.

When we arrived in Tolú, a lady sitting by Don told him that it would be easier to catch a boat if we went to the next town, Coveñas, where she was heading. Upon arrival we were assured by a young man, no no, we definitely wanted to be in Tolú. I can only assume the woman was well intentioned and misinformed (because who would knowingly give false directions, right Miss Card?). So we headed back to Tolú, and a woman we met on the way was incredibly kind in showing us around, including a place to stay for the night. The night wound up going something like this: being told by multiple tour companies we could only get to the islands by joining a tour/having that confirmed by random locals to our disappointment, waking up to Don having a leak above his bed/being re-woken up at 6am because our room was being rented to someone else that day.

We got on a tour boat the next morning, with our first stop on Isla Palma. There was an aquarium on the island, but none of us deemed worth paying an additional fee to go into. So we sat on the dock and waited for our group to return to the boat. We did a drive-by of Isla Tintipan and one of Santa Cruz del Islote, which happens to be one of the world's most populated islands with a shantytown of 850-1000 people (depending on whether the children are at school on the mainland) living on 0.01 km sq. I felt pretty uncomfortable floating nearby the island while our guide talked about it. There was no indication that the people of the island were benefiting from this tourism-from-a-distance, and I felt pretty awkward taking a picture. I've read some people from the island work in the tourism industry on nearby islands, but somehow I doubt tour companies are sharing their profits.

Finally we arrived at Isla Mucura, our intended destination. After talking to some helpful and some less helpful individuals (read: trying to make money off of us), we walked away from the high-impact touristy side of the island and made our way along the shore. We were directed to a place to stay called Dahlandia, which turned out to be affordable, by a beach, and with someone who could take us out snorkeling. We could also get meals included, and to Don's benefit I never seem to finish my meals, particularly when it's seafood (such as fresh fish or lobsters). There was a group of about six Colombians there for the first night, and two Italians there for both nights. Otherwise, we didn't see any other tourists (not that we went looking for them - there was a huge resort down the beach where I'm sure we could have stumbled across a few). We spent our time Saturday through Monday on the beach, snorkeling, reading, playing cards and relaxing in hammocks.

For a girl who's only ever snorkeled in Georgian Bay, Ontario, taking a look at the coral reefs and the aquatic life that goes along with it was a great experience. I was impressed with all the bright colours (of both fish and coral), the variety, and how close I could get to all of it (including cutting up my foot on some coral, naturally). The second time we went out, we had a guide with us who would pick up the lobster, hand us a sea cucumber and point out the rays gliding by below us. It was great just exploring - sometimes a particular fish would catch my eye and I would follow it around until I lost it in the coral or was momentarily distracted making sure I hadn't wandered too far from the others. The experience was definitely worth the pink and painful back that I ended up paying for it.

I feel like this post is getting rather long, but I can't end it without hitting the highlights of our trip home. We were joined on this journey by the Italians staying at the same cabaña as us, since they were flying out of Cartagena the next day. And so it went:
- arrive at the pick up location to find out that our tour boat had not arrived, which made us feel like it would not arrive
- eventually determine that arrangements had been made for another tour boat to take us back
- arrive in Tolú and have a rickshaw-esque bike take us to the bus terminal
- find out that the last bus (4:30pm) is about to leave and there were no seats left, but we can get tickets for the 6am bus if we want
- ask around and find out we can take a collectivo bus to nearby Sincelejo, and take a bus to Cartagena from there
- realize all the collectivo buses are full by the time they reach us, take another rickshaw-esque bike to a better location
- take a bus to Sincelejo, confirm they have tickets for the 8pm bus, then have the tickets bought by someone else in the city at a different location before we pull out our wallets
- find out there is a transportation business across the street, and be told they can take us in a collectivo van to Cartagena (followed by price haggling, and an agreement we will be dropped off by our hotel)
- a bumpy (and for me quite painful and uncomfortable) ride with the air conditioning on epic-high-blast
- arrive in Cartagena only to stop in a different part of town and be told this was the end of the line, tough luck
- say goodbye to the Italians and hail a cab to take us home

Luckily our trio is made up of easy going individuals. From the start of the journey home we agreed that if we had to stay an extra night in Tulo, it wasn't a big deal. A phone call to our office and then make our way home when we could. We weren't thrilled at our inability to get a bus home, but no one was stressed and we were able to joke about our predicament as we counted off the modes of transportation we took in one day. It was certainly quite the ending to our weekend.

Not exactly a glamor shot, but me on the dock at Isla Palma. I didn't mention it earlier, but we had grey skies and drizzle which fabulously cleared up when we reached Isla Mucura.

Santa Cruz del Islote - one of my morally controversial pictures.

Walking along a path on Isla Mucura from the tourist boats to Dahlandia - beautiful lush greenery.

I recommend taking a closer look at this picture. That's a huge pile of empty, discarded conch shells. Did I mention that I ate conch meat for the first time that weekend?

Naturally this picture doesn't to justice to the beach by our cabana, but since I didn't manage to take one that does, this will have to do.

Looking along Isla Mucura towards Dahlandia.

The second night we were moved to a more scenic room, since the Colombians staying in it had left. We certainly felt the wind swaying us the next morning when a bit of thunder was rolling through.

Absolutely incredible sunset our first night - my camera may have intensified the colours a bit, but that's pretty much what we were fortunate enough to witness.