The 16 Bahias Tour.
Friday, September 1st - once again Margarita our tour-arranging-person picked us up, with a driver who Cristina suspects may be her boyfriend. Amd we proceeded to the next town over, Rodadero, to the small docks at the side of the beach where the tourist excursions depart from. We had to wait about half an hour for our catamaran. There was a pair of young "tourism police" in uniform just near us, a man and a woman, amd the woman never ceased to have her hand on the man's shoulder, I'm not sure but they may even have been holding hands at one point, amd she definitely looked at him with the ojos del amor. It was adorably unprofessional.
By amd by our boat came in, a two story motor-catamaran. We were given a welcome drink (moro juice w rum?), amd shortly later a second round of the same.
This excursion was a tour of "16 bays" amd so we went from bay to bay amd the names thereof amd any interesting details were mentioned over the PA. When announcements weren't being made, music was played amd at one point all four crewmembers who weren't actively engaged in operating the vessel trooped up to the top deck (where we were) and lead everyone in some dancing (incidentally both male crewmembers thus engaged appeared to be a bit flamboyant).
After touring the various bays, around 12:50 we arrived at the bay the next cove over from where we'd been the day before. This one ("Inca Inca?") was much less crowded. We swam a bit, had lunch, though Cristina is getting tired of the same same food. She had eaten fish for about a week while we were at Isla Pirata because she reasoned that you eat fish at a beach amd to eat anything else is a bit absurd. I don't like fish so i rotated between grilled chicken, carne asada, and grilled pork, like a true buccaneer (buccaneer literally means "one who grills"). Now even after she's gotten sick of fish she's tired of the same basic grilled meat, coconut rice, lackluster shredded cabbage salad every day.
After lunch we went snorkeling, there was no coral reef here but a lot of fish, because apparently they feed them. I was also shocked to see the staffmember who took us on a bit of a snorkel tour bring up a piece of coral to show us since usually touching coral at all is a no-no. There was an underwater statue of a mermaid and of a shark. Altogether it was kind of a hokey canned-feeling snorkeling experience but at least there were a bunch of fish.
After that we were swimming again amd just starting to discuss what we'll do next (options: swim more or sit on the beach), when we were relieved to hear it was time to board the boat again (around 15:00?). I think we're pretty well beached out.
BUT after we boarded the boat it only went a short distance to the aquarium on the side of the cove we had declined to sign up for the aquarium since of had just been to the one on the Rosario Islands (and this one seemed smaller), though we hadn't quite realized our boat would take us there regardless. So we got to spend about an hour sitting on the aquarium dock. But we saw a dolphin show for free? Dolphins really are quite remarkable the tricks they can be trained to do. Amd these dolphins performed in the open water in front of the aquarium, presumably free to "escape" if they so desired.
Finally we were able to re board our vessel, which took us out around one point back to Rodadero. This time we just hailed a cab. The driver had immigrated to Colombia from Chile eight years ago, he was nice, his taxi was decrepit. Amd it always astounds me how many people, _especially_ taxi drivers are completely unable to read a map. I tried to show him the map directions on google maps on my phone amd he squinted at it like it was a text in Chinese, so Cristina amd i had to give him turn by turning left/right directions as they came. Taxis are regulated here, why don't they make basic map reading a requirement for being a taxi driver (this should be everywhere). Like a really fundamentally don't understand how this is so hard, there's a line, amd you're a dot on the line, does the line in front turn left or right?? Boggles my mind that this boggles anyone's mind.
Returned to our hotel. I'll include the evening in next entry. The end.
By amd by our boat came in, a two story motor-catamaran. We were given a welcome drink (moro juice w rum?), amd shortly later a second round of the same.
This excursion was a tour of "16 bays" amd so we went from bay to bay amd the names thereof amd any interesting details were mentioned over the PA. When announcements weren't being made, music was played amd at one point all four crewmembers who weren't actively engaged in operating the vessel trooped up to the top deck (where we were) and lead everyone in some dancing (incidentally both male crewmembers thus engaged appeared to be a bit flamboyant).
After touring the various bays, around 12:50 we arrived at the bay the next cove over from where we'd been the day before. This one ("Inca Inca?") was much less crowded. We swam a bit, had lunch, though Cristina is getting tired of the same same food. She had eaten fish for about a week while we were at Isla Pirata because she reasoned that you eat fish at a beach amd to eat anything else is a bit absurd. I don't like fish so i rotated between grilled chicken, carne asada, and grilled pork, like a true buccaneer (buccaneer literally means "one who grills"). Now even after she's gotten sick of fish she's tired of the same basic grilled meat, coconut rice, lackluster shredded cabbage salad every day.
After lunch we went snorkeling, there was no coral reef here but a lot of fish, because apparently they feed them. I was also shocked to see the staffmember who took us on a bit of a snorkel tour bring up a piece of coral to show us since usually touching coral at all is a no-no. There was an underwater statue of a mermaid and of a shark. Altogether it was kind of a hokey canned-feeling snorkeling experience but at least there were a bunch of fish.
After that we were swimming again amd just starting to discuss what we'll do next (options: swim more or sit on the beach), when we were relieved to hear it was time to board the boat again (around 15:00?). I think we're pretty well beached out.
BUT after we boarded the boat it only went a short distance to the aquarium on the side of the cove we had declined to sign up for the aquarium since of had just been to the one on the Rosario Islands (and this one seemed smaller), though we hadn't quite realized our boat would take us there regardless. So we got to spend about an hour sitting on the aquarium dock. But we saw a dolphin show for free? Dolphins really are quite remarkable the tricks they can be trained to do. Amd these dolphins performed in the open water in front of the aquarium, presumably free to "escape" if they so desired.
Finally we were able to re board our vessel, which took us out around one point back to Rodadero. This time we just hailed a cab. The driver had immigrated to Colombia from Chile eight years ago, he was nice, his taxi was decrepit. Amd it always astounds me how many people, _especially_ taxi drivers are completely unable to read a map. I tried to show him the map directions on google maps on my phone amd he squinted at it like it was a text in Chinese, so Cristina amd i had to give him turn by turning left/right directions as they came. Taxis are regulated here, why don't they make basic map reading a requirement for being a taxi driver (this should be everywhere). Like a really fundamentally don't understand how this is so hard, there's a line, amd you're a dot on the line, does the line in front turn left or right?? Boggles my mind that this boggles anyone's mind.
Returned to our hotel. I'll include the evening in next entry. The end.