After leaving Medellín, with its shopping malls, metro lines, restaurants, and air conditioning, we literally fell off the map – that map, of course, being the continent of South America. Our destination: Isla Fuerte, one of many small Caribbean islands off the Colombian coast. Our goal was to cut ourselves off from the world, enjoy some beach time with literally nothing else to do, and perhaps see some interesting wildlife. The latter was why we chose Isla Fuerte over the other Caribbean options. This island, in addition to its ubiquitous chickens, donkeys, and beer-drinking humans, is home to a colony of sloths – creatures second only to housecats in the easy, lazy examples they set for the rest of us.
But before the words “tropical paradise” enter your head, let me disabuse you of that notion. Four days on Isla Fuerte was more of a “tropical endurance test.” Life on the island is primitive to say the least and because we weren’t there during tourist season, 90% of all businesses on the island were closed, including the hostel at which we’d booked a room. Nowhere is there air conditioning, and the daytime highs and the nighttime lows were both around 90°F. The plumbing is based solely, we believe, on rainwater collected in rooftop cisterns, and the whole region is currently in a crushing drought. The amount of potable drinking water on the island was dwarfed by the quantity of beer.
And from day one it became clear that yes indeed, we were in the Caribbean, where tourists are viewed by many – to use Lea’s expression – as “walking ATMs.” The general level of trust we’d built up that the people of South America would help out and point us in the right direction was eroded from the moment we left the mainland.
Our route was a night bus from Medellín to the little town of Lorica. From there, we took a ride to the coastal village of Paso Nuevo via tuk-tuk. The tuk-tuk, top-heavy with our luggage on the roof and not quite stable with only three wheels for a pot-holed forty kilometer journey, was quite the adrenaline rush to wake us up from our long, sleepy ride.
We asked the driver to take us to the dock for the boats going to Isla Fuerte, which he did – sort of. It turns out he didn’t bring us to the main public dock, but instead to a private launch where the owners offered an “express” ferry to the island for a mere $60,000 COP ($18 USD) each. The other option they offered was to wait for more passengers, which would bring it down to $40,000 each. We were tired and ready to get to our hostel, so we elected for the higher price. The crew then proceeded to load our backpacks, along with a shipment of long wooden poles, and we were on our way.
We found out later that the public ferry is $15,000 per person. We got tricked into paying four times that much and subsidized someone’s lumber shipment as part of the bargain. Upon making landfall – and I should also note that there are no piers on either end, so you walk into the surf to get on and off the ferry – there were plenty of people offering to “help” us find our hotel. “No thanks,” we said, “we’ve got it from here.”
The place that we’d booked was on the edge of Puerto Limon, the island’s tiny village. We’d downloaded several maps, none of which even agreed on the island’s general outline. Google Maps was most accurate on that score, but its approximation of the “streets” in Puerto Limon was nothing close to reality. In truth, Isla Fuerte has no streets – just footpaths, donkey trails, and a handful of paved sidewalks. The island is so small that it doesn’t need anything else.
We found our hostel only to be told by the lady whom we presumed to be the manager that we couldn’t stay there. It was either too hot in the building or there were electrical problems – we were never clear – but she dragged us back across town to the parrot-infested Hotel Puerto Limon, right where we’d originally disembarked, and handed us over to the staff there. We could have argued but we were tired, they had a room with a private bath, and it was slightly cheaper than our original reservation anyway (though they tried to argue it up later). Besides, with no Internet or phone signal we had no way to research other options. It seems that in the off season, there are only three or four hotels that remain open anyway.
Let me describe our room. It opened onto a balcony that overlooked an almond tree and the Caribbean. It had a private bath and shower, with a curtain to separate the toilet from the rest of the room no less! There was a large garbage can in the shower that was filled with water to the top. This is what we’d have to use to wash ourselves and flush the toilet for the next four days.
The room had glass-paned windows, but we’re not sure why. Above them were openings directly to the outside, so there was no keeping bugs out. There was no glass in one of the panes on the balcony door, so even though you could lock it, anyone could reach in from outside and open it up. There was a fan over the bed, and they brought us a second one. These only served to make the heat barely tolerable, and only if all the doors were open as well. There was a breeze that flowed down the hotel’s central hallway and would have cooled the room effectively, except that every night someone fired up a generator in a building behind the hotel, sending noxious fumes straight through the hall.
There was ample room to hang our mosquito net, thank goodness, but the bed was a solid slab of concrete and our pillows were like sacks of potatoes straight from Peru. The power went out every night for at least an hour, but reliably came back in time for dinner.
As for meals, an ecohostal called “La Playita” is the only place on the island with a dependable kitchen and bar, so we became regulars despite not staying at their hotel. Our own served breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but we had to let them know in advance if we wanted to eat. At first we weren’t the only guests, but we were by the time we left.
In essence, after spending nine months circumnavigating the continent, we saved the hardest, most “roughing it” hotel stay for nearly the very last.
So was it all bad? Absolutely not. By day Isla Fuerte is beautiful, and if you have the wherewithal to hike to any other part of the island, there are cool tropical breezes that make life infinitely more pleasant than in the sheltered, scorching port town. On our first full day we set out in search of Playa San Diego, the island’s most popular beach and reportedly a good place to spot the fabled sloths. We couldn’t find the sloths despite much searching, but we did enjoy a cool, windy beach with thatched umbrellas for shade and a lunch shack where a kind old woman sold water and beer.
That afternoon we tracked down Rafa, owner of Cabañas Lili and much of the island’s tour business, and booked a snorkeling trip for the following day. At $50,000 COP for the two of us, it turned out to be a bargain. We went to four snorkel sites around the island, some with interesting coral, some with fish, and two with ferocious currents. We landed back at San Diego for beer and water from the same nice abuela as the day before, and we got one of our guides to show us where the damn sloths were. Once they were pointed out to us, it was a forehead-slapping moment. We had almost certainly looked right at them and simply mistaken them for termite nests or something. They blend right into the trees and, if you don’t spot their faces or claws, look like nothing but big gray balls of fur.
That afternoon that we went to La Playita for adult beverages (I hate beer) and that evening we went back for dinner. Afterward, daily visits became routine. La Playita is owned by a jovial, talkative Australian, and we got to hang out with fellow backpackers from Germany and France who were working their way through the country.
On our last day, our mission was to head back to San Diego with my telephoto lens and catch us some sloths (photographically speaking). This we did, both on the way to the beach and later when we left. There were adults, adolescents, and one tiny baby crawling all over his mother and surely being a pest. At the beach, abuela pulled out chairs for us and we spent hours going back and forth from the cool, relaxing waves to the shade of a crooked tree.
We got up very early for the 6:00 a.m. boat to shore. The attendant only tried to scam us a little – asking for $20,000 each before we told him we knew it was only $15,000. After that, we taxied back to Lorica and bused an hour up the road to the seaside town of Tolú, a place so quiet that its motto ought to be “Nothing to see here, move along.” It has a seaside malecón with jetties, wandering vendors, restaurants, and juice bars – some of which are actually open. We’ve gone out a couple of times, but mostly this is a stop to tuck ourselves in and recover from the heatstroke of the island before taking on the challenge of our next, and last, big city.
I’m writing this from the Hotel Pizzeria Opera Tolú, which has air conditioning and a pleasant cold shower (words I never thought I’d use). I rarely mention the names of the places we stay, but I want to say this one again: Hotel Pizzeria Opera Tolú. When I saw that there was a hotel that was also a pizza joint, that it was only $16 USD per night, and that it had a 9.4 rating on Booking.com, I told Lea “I think I’ve found the place.”
From here we’re off to Cartagena de Indias, where we’ll meet up with some friends who’ll stay with us for the rest of our trip. We’ve booked a two-bedroom apartment in the Bocagrande district overlooking the sea. It’s been a long road and there’s only a little left. It’s hard to believe that our lives are about to change again, and in just as big a way as they did when we started this trip. I’ll write about that wave when we surf it. Until then, here’s to one more week of adventure, beach snacks, high-quality rum, and (gods willing) relaxation.
Here we go.
P.S. Love In the Time of Cholera
For my novel-per-country project, I just had to go with Gabriel García Márquez. In this, his second most famous book after One Hundred Years of Solitude, he charts a love triangle that lasts for well over fifty years, mainly because the spurned romantic at the heart of the story is an obsessive maniac who refuses to give up on his first crush. It’s set in Caribbean Colombia during a time when the interior was still an inaccessible wilderness and the country was starting to open it up to the wider world. I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy this book that much after the first chapter, but I think I’ve gotten used to the pacing and flow of South American literary epics. My full review is here on Goodreads. I can’t help but notice that Lea only gave it one star. I gave it five. Maybe this country has charmed me more than I thought.
P.P.S. Snorkeling Pics!
