Life Below 20°: November 2013

Colombia is the only South American country with coastlines on the Atlantic and Pacific. We joke in my family that the Pacific is the real ocean. So I was thrilled to visit the Pacific coast department of Choco, the rainiest place in Colombia, where the jungle extends right to the sea. Fellow teachers Christy and Maureen (known as Moe) and I journeyed via Medellin to the little towns of Bahia Solano and El Valle during our October break.

Choco is home to several national parks, rainforest, many rivers, and members of the Antarctic population of humpbacks who spend the winter there, and lots of other wildlife. And relatively few people: descendants of African workers and slaves, local indigenous people, a few expats, escapees from big Colombian cities who have come to surf, fish, or go native. We were the only Americans in the area at the time of our visit, though there were a few Colombian tourists. It is certainly out of the way but the government is working to promote eco-tourism in the area with some success. As tourists we felt welcome and the people were friendly and helpful, well mostly anyway. One machete-wielding youth following us made us a bit nervous. Though the area is quite poor, the children looked happy and fed. We made friends with a couple of little kids, one of whom took us to visit pens full of piggies. Aside from tourism, the local economy includes small shops, subsistence ranching and fishing, and support for the large numbers of soldiers, complete with assault rifles, that we saw around.

The corner market

What to do in a tsunami...

I didn't eat any pork this trip.

I discovered Choco is one of the areas of continued FARC activity; apparently the August announcement of the guerillas laying down their arms was a bit premature. The towns and tourist areas are considered safe but it is not recommended to travel into the jungles, which made me decide not to take one of our guides up on booking a canoe ride upriver to an indigenous village. I took photos of several bunkers in the hills and got yelled at by a soldier who ran out to tell me “no fotos!” I'm glad he didn’t ask for the camera or make me delete the pictures.

I asked Christy and Moe to pose in the street, which they did very nicely, but I was
actually trying to get a shot of the soldiers behind them.

Our first lodging was a posada with rustic cabins close to the bay in Bahia Solano. The grounds were rampant with birds, flowers, and greenery explained by the rainstorms which occurred frequently throughout the days and nights we were there.

We lucked out with semi-sunny weather when the hostel proprietor Rodrigo, a dive master, took us whale-watching in his rather small boat. We saw quite a few humpbacks as they made their way south returning to Antarctic waters to feed for the summer. They were focused on traveling so we saw no breaching, but from the size of their backs surfacing there were some big boys out there. The best part was when Rodrigo cut the engine and we could hear whale song! When they were closer we always heard them blowing before we saw them. A stop for a while at a nearly deserted beach finished that day’s trip.

The rest of our trip was spent 15 km away in the even smaller community of El Valle. We had visited it the first day to check out the beach and decided to go spend a couple of nights there after our whale-watching excursion. The incredibly poor road from Bahio Solano gave way to a concrete paved “hiway” about halfway there, no doubt courtesy of some government program though we never learned why it didn’t actually connect the two towns. The first time we made the trip was in a 3-wheeled motorbike contraption called a “tres llantes.” I had moments of actual stomach-churning fear as the rickety machine dipped in and out of potholes and puddles, lurching precariously. I thought it was going to tip over and crush me in the mud. We all agreed that springing a bit more cash for a real car the next trip over would be money well-spent.

The second posada we stayed was right on El Almejal Beach, which was beautiful, though marred with a fair amount of detritus both natural and man-made. But the home-cooked meals were decent, if repetitive, and the accommodations as clean as possible in a place where the mud never really dries out.

There are numerous local guides that take tourists out to see the sights and we had arranged to be woken up in the night if there were sea turtles active. So we had the wonderful experience the first night there of observing a sea turtle lay her eggs (108 of them!) which were then collected for incubation to keep them safe from poachers.

We took a guided trip on another small boat the next day. We left the bay at El Valle, just a cove really, by waiting until the surf became flatter and dashing out between the waves. The guide pointed out to us “mar café” or brown sea (yes, as nasty as it sounds) as we made our way out to open ocean- trash, silt, and sewage from the river that runs through the town flows out the cove in a large brown “river” atop the ocean. He happily informed us when we reached “mar azul.” As if we couldn’t tell.

Lack of adequate water treatment and sewage contributes to the "mar cafe." This is the only place in Colombia so far where I did not drink the water.

We journeyed south, passing an incredible beach 9 km long with an amazing break. Someday there will be a surf resort there, I’m sure. We entered Utria National Park, a protected area of mangroves, jungle, and small islands that form a bay where whales give birth to their calves when they arrive early in the season. Another beautiful and fascinating place. We stopped at a small island with an appropriately and commonly named Playa Blanca and I encountered the first real salt and pepper sand I’ve seen here in Colombia. We had it to ourselves and it was truly lovely.

Our boat

Playa Blanca

The boat ride back was dicey as we stayed ahead of an impending storm and dealt with swells that were much larger than when we had gone out. We knew we might be in trouble when the guide went to the hatch in the bow and took out life jackets and made us put them on. It took several tense minutes and false starts before we were able to get back into the small bay between sets of large waves. The pictures don’t really convey how large the surf was.

The ride back to the airport in the small chiva bus driven by the posada’s owner (one of those big city escapees gone native, complete with local wife and baby) was more comfortable than the tres llantes, at least until he realized that a tire was going flat. He asked us to sit on the opposite side and eventually told us he could go no further. But we had a plane to catch! Luckily for us, a truck came by and was happy to give us a ride. So Christy, Moe, and our luggage perched on the bananas and bags of coconuts in the back and I, as senior member of our group, got to squish in the front, only a slightly more comfortable location, I’m sure. It was a fitting end to our stay in Choco.

Though we still had a flight delay and the Bogota airport to deal with, we made it back only a bit later than planned, tired but happy with all we had seen in a few short days. It may well be the most adventuresome trip I’ll make while in Colombia.
Viva Pacifico!

The road ends in the town and all vehicles drive on the sand to get to the lodgings directly on El Almejal Beach. Which means several posadas and homes at the far end of the beach are not accessible at high tide except on foot.
More pictures below.