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Published: March 23rd 2011
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ariel view of resort
the next bunch of pictures are all from the abandoned mucurra club hotel Well after our last blog you could probably sense that we were a little down and under, but we finally caught a break! After leaving Garbage Beach we travelled up the coastline to a city called Tolú, which apparantly is a popular holiday destination for locals. The beach was pretty sad, brown murky water and little patches of sand, but there were tonnes of seaside restaurants and little bars, and everybody was in pretty good spirits. We stayed a night, and booked a boat tour the next morning of the San Bernadino Islands just 40 minutes off the coast. We had heard these were pretty special and beautiful, but we were feeling a little skeptical at the present time.
We discovered that the secret ( in our experience ) to an awesome beach is Islands. Coastlines are usually a little weak, Islands are where the blue water and white sand seem to always be hiding out. As our little boat toured around the islands we were giddy with excitement of our first true Carribean tourquouise water sighting !! We snorkelled, had lobster ceviche, cerveza´s ( michelado style, which is where they put lemon juice in the bottom of the glass,
rim it with salt and add a dash of hot sauce ) and bronzed our skin. We fell in love with one island in particular called Mucura, and decided we would come back the next day with our luggage and stay awhile.
Our experience here on this island was completely and utterly surreal on many many levels. Where do I start. Okay, our accomodation. There is an abandoned resort called Mucura Club Hotel that was apparantly owned by a rich Colombian drug lord back in the hay days, rumour has it he gifted it to his lawyer who lives in Bogota because he couldn´t pay his hefty fees. Well the owner, wherever she or he is, is never around. But the staff still are. There are staff quarters in the back of the resort where they used to stay when the hotel was hopping with the rich and famous of Colombian druglords, but now they rent out the staff quarters to backpackers for 20 bucks a night and the staff stay in random rooms in the swank hotel. No ones there to say otherwise!! So we stayed in the staff quarters, with maybe 5 other people, but we still
had free range of the whole resort. So we could hang out seaside in hammocks, use the tables and bars ect. I guess before this the only place to stay was with locals in their huts. This little set up had only been happening for 3 whole weeks.
The other aspect that was a little random was that there were no real restaurants on the island. This island had literally just opened up to tourism, so it was still extremely grassroots and pure. There was one beach that had 3 little restaurants that served up fresh fish to the day trippers, but closed soon after. So breakfast and lunch you had to find a freelance cook in the village. The village had one little shop that sold milk, beer a bit of fruit and cookies. We met Oscar and Jaun who were a dynamic duo of a floating restaurant. These guys would make you breakfast, lunch or dinner and serve it to you anywhere you wanted it on the island ( no extra charge ) So you could have it infront of your room, on the beach, at the end of a pier whatever you wanted. The options were
a bit limited, but how can you complain, there was either Lobster, Snapper, Barracuda or Conch ( yes conch, like in those big pretty shells that you put your ear up to and hear the sea ). Oscar was from New York but was born in Colombia and Juan had lived on the island his whole life. Sometimes we would hang out in the village where all the locals lived and within minutes have almost every child that lived there climbing on top of you, braiding your hair, burrying your feet in sand, eating your food ect, they were all ridiculously cute.
So this little set up is a bit unconventional, I think you would agree ! And as a result, we had our first real getting ripped off moment. The first day we arrived we had this guy named Jauncho following us around, being really nice, probably too nice, and taking our lunch orders and stuff ( from the restaurant that was only open for lunch for the daytrippers ) after lunch he walked us around the island showing us around, he introduced us to his cute daughter, showed me amazing little hidden beaches with nothing but perfect
seashells on it. And at the end of it attempted to take our dinner order. Bobby and I were a little wierded out because at this point in time we didn´t realize we needed a freelancer, and hadn´t met Oscar and Jaun yet. So we gave him our money told him what we wanted and where. After 10 minutes we met Oscar and he told us that Jauncho was a big scammer and they are trying to get him off the island blah blah and to only order from him. It turned into a little bit of small island drama and by the next day everyone had heard that Jauncho had yet again scammed another tourist, so they all ganged up on the guy and got him to give our money back or else they would have all beat him up. So we saw him working the next day to earn the money.....kinda crazy. We even saw a sign up waring people against the guy after. Talk about community hey
The island was pure paridise. Reletively untouched, we got to experience and witness an entire tourism process at the very beginning, organic stages. I bet a year from now
there will be multiple hotels, stores and restuarants and the days of hanging out in the village, or in an abandoned resort, having meals cooked by locals in their kitchens gone.
It was an experience we will never forget and feel very privilaged to be a part of.
there are 3 pages of photos
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