sedativegunk

Medellín, Colombia

I’m sitting in a hotel that was built by the druglord Pablo Escobar, or so recounted the taxi driver when he dropped me off here. I’m not interested in the life or death of the man whose gang laid waste to this city for over a decade as they fought to control the cocaine trade. It bothers me that there is a part of the tourism industry here that exploits this sad history that tourists will pay money to learn about a man that should be banished from memory. But enough of that…

I arrived in Cartagena a week ago yesterday. The old part of the city is quite charming with its colourful buildings and million dollar views of the Caribbean. The city attracts mobs of high end tourists and budget backpackers, the latter usually using the city as a stopover before setting out to visit quieter coastal towns and beaches of the region. I spent two nights there and felt that I was ready to leave at that point. Cartagena seems like a more expensive and less interesting version of Havana.

I flew to Medellín on Sunday for a quick overnight. I had a plane to catch from Medellín to the Pacific Coast on Monday and I didn’t want to risk doing all that travel in one day, which involves a change of airports in Medellín and the notoriously elastic Colombian time.

Monday I arrived at the small downtown Medellín airport for my flight to The Pacific coast only to find that the flight was delayed due to some kind of protest going on in at the Bahia Solano airport. Four hours later we were finally on our way. The one hour flight on the 20-seat Beechcraft aircraft was a bit of a roller coaster ride coming out of Medellín. The city is surrounded by mountains that require planes leaving that airport to gain altitude quickly. Combine that with some tremendous thermal updrafts from the midday sun warming the air and ground below and the little plane was bouncing around quite nicely to our amusement.

Taking off from Medellín

Arriving in Bahia Solano on the Pacific coast.

Bahia Solano’s airport is essentially a landing strip with a small wood construction terminal and a dilapidated corrugated steel control tower. This is the end of the world. There are no roads leading to this part of Chocó state. It is an area of small farms, dense forest, tropical temperatures and some of the highest rainfall counts anywhere in the world. Cell phone service is limited and there is one ATM to serve the region (and it is usually empty of money). On arrival I found out that the protesters were taxi drivers, protesting the horrible road conditions in the area (they want the government to finish paving the road). I got on a 3-wheel tuk-tuk, which is the local workhorse for the taxi industry, and made my way down a rutted dirt road to El Valle, and learned firsthand why the taxi drivers gripe about the roads. Apart from a small section of paved road, the rest is deeply rutted and a muddy quagmire after the frequent rains there. I eventually got to the tiny village where I would spend the next four days. The distance is not more than 10 km but the taxi ride takes nearly an hour due to the poor road conditions.

My cotravellers on the tuk-tuk

The Humpback Turtle hostel is situated at the very end of the gorgeous black sand Almejal beach about a 20 min walk outside of El Valle. The dense forest behind and the black volcanic rock formations that frame the beach make for beautiful landscape. The lodging are a series of wood shacks (resembing treehouses) with thatched roofs surrounded by gardens. At the back of the complex was a sheltered area with 8 or so hammocks for those backpackers looking for an even more rustic experience.

Apart from its beaches, El Valle is known for whales and sea turtles and the locals are realizing the economic potential of bringing tourists to this isolated area to see them. Over the course of the four days I would take in 2 boat tours for whale watching and a night walk to see a giant mama sea turtle lay eggs on the beach. This last experience I would highly recommend. This the second time I’ve experienced the chance to see turtles laying their eggs and it’s a fascinating thing to watch. These turtles return to the same spot to lay their eggs but they’re facing a hard time surviving with more human activity. The efforts by local people to assist in maintaining the turtle population is remarkable as they do it on a shoestring. They have people collect the buried eggs and bring them to the hatchery where the eggs can gestate and hatch and the young turtles have a much greater chance of survival. Sadly my videos and photos did not turn out due to the lack of light.

One interesting tour was to see a beach full of hermit crabs. The beach was crawling with little crabs of all sizes. The cool thing about these critters is that they protect themselves using the discarded shells of other shellfish. When they outgrow one, they just find a new one. So they all are dressed up in different outfits and different colours!

https://videos.files.wordpress.com/ottfzLeq/img_3243.mov

Apart from the scenery, surfing and wildlife, what I really liked about El Valle was the type of traveller it attracted. Everyone was so friendly and it was easy, as a lone traveller, to meet up with a gang to go on a walk, take in a tour, or play a game of Trou de cul (the French version of the card game Asshole).

This husky that lived at the hostel reminds me of Luna in many ways. She loves attention, immediately rolls over on her back to get her belly rubbed, and will want to play with all the critters even if they don’t share the same interest. Here she is trying to coax a cat into playing. Every one of this situations results in a battle royale with the dog running away, only to come back a few hours later to try again.

Food here consisted of fried fish of every kind. Most meals were eaten at the hostel but a couple of us ventured into town to the only restaurant to have dinner one night. With such a poor community it was a bit surprising that the restaurant owners could make a go of it but there were enough tourists around to keep it going I guess.

Alas my four days in paradise came to an end and I’m now back in Medellín for my last weekend.