We have seen a lot of beaches in our travels, but we try to listen to the suggestions of the local people and fellow travelers and they all said we needed to go to Playa Blanca and the Rosario Islands. It was the most expensive tour we had done yet ($35 USD) but we figured it must be worth it. We needed to be at the marina at 8:30 to catch our boat so we got up early to get coffee. We once again tried the cute little coffee shop in old town, but were surprised when they charged us $4000 pesos each ($2) for the tiniest to-go cup of coffee..not a good deal. On our way to the boat, we were being constantly hounded by people selling bottles of cold water. Its so strange to me because they see you turn down the person 10ft away from them and then they come up to you and try to sell the same thing. We had one man following us down the street, trying to badger us into buying one that I finally had to yell at to get him to stop talking. Since I don't know how to say a lot of things in Spanish like "shut the fuck up" or "leave us alone" I had to resort to yelling, "Señor, no gracias" with very stern hand gestures. Luckily this worked and he left but Alyssa was cracking up.
We got to the marina and boarded our boat. Luckily we each got our own seat and there was a covering to the boat so we were shaded from the glaring sunlight.
As we rode out, we got a good view of the new part of the city, which sort of resembles Miami with its tall sky scrapers along the white sand beach.
We made a stop out in the water to talk to some of the local, indigenous people who were in a canoe. Our guide said if we threw change into the water, they would swim down and get it. Quite a few people threw money and these kids were able to find it sinking in the ocean very quickly. It was kind of sad to watch though.
Our guide told us we had two options for the tour: you could be dropped off at Playa Blanca and stay there all day or you could go to the Rosario Islands to do some snorkeling and then spend the afternoon at Playa Blanca. We thought, why not do both? We dropped off the people who wanted to just stay at the beach first and I was immediately dismayed at this beach. The local people had completely taken over the beach space and built cabanas on every inch of it as far as you could see. The people who were getting off of the boat were being attacked by 40 locals trying to sell them jewelry, coconuts, etc. This is not my idea of a relaxing beach; it was clearly a tourist trap with jet ski and banana boat rentals.
We headed out to the islands and sadly I was disappointed by that too. I was expecting beautiful white sand islands with palm trees but each island had a house on it and was nothing special. We were allowed to get off on one of the big islands to tour the aquarium or we could go snorkeling between the islands. I had brought my snorkel gear so I thought this was the best option but Alyssa had to pay $25,000 ($13USD) to borrow the gear, which we thought was pretty steep since you can buy it in town for $10. We were gearing up to jump into the water when the guide asked me why I hadn't paid. I showed him that I had brought my own gear and he insisted that I needed to pay $15,000 for his supervision while I swam. I laughed and said, absolutely not. We argued back and forth for a while in Spanish but finally we said we no longer wanted to snorkel. Alyssa got her money back and we sat on the bow of the boat while the other people snorkeled. It seemed as if none of these other tourists knew how to swim and some were genuinely terrified of water. It was kind of interesting to watch them bob around in their life vests, not even looking underwater because they were just trying to float properly. We finally decided to jump into the water and swim around (without life vests). Both of us are great swimmers but the other people were so freaked out that we were just swimming with no vest- they though we would drown, lol (this was completely calm water, no waves). I could see then that there wasn't even a reef below us (it was so shallow, I could stand) and the people said they only saw a few fish- worst snorkel trip ever.
We gathered everyone back into the boat and headed back to Playa Blanca. Our lunch was included as part of the tour, so I had my first whole fried fish. Alyssa was nice enough to de-bone it for me because I had no idea what to do.
While we ate lunch, we met a group of Navy men from Chile that were also on our tour. They spoke decent English and wanted to practice speaking with us because it is a requirement for them to pass an English test to be able to transfer to posts in other countries. After lunch, we all headed out to the beach to lay out but of course it started to rain. One of the boys purchased a cabana that we could keep our stuff under and then we all hung out in the ocean- that way we were wet anyways! We spent a lot of time teaching each other different vocabulary that we didn't know. We learned how to say "leave me alone" and a few other choice curse words we could use when being harassed. They thought it was hilarious any time we said one of them. After spending two hours swimming around in the rain, we re-boarded the boat and headed back to town. This was not our first boat trip through the rain, but luckily this rain was not coming down very hard so it was only mildly stinging when it hit you in the face. We said good bye to our Navy friends at the marina and headed back to the hostel to shower.
We got ready quickly because Colombia was playing Ecuador in a world cup qualifying match and we wanted to go watch the game with the locals. We found a bar that still had some seats available and hung out. Luckily, Colombia won 1-0, so the entire town was having a party in the streets, celebrating their victory.
After the game, we headed back to Collage to try out some more things on their menu. We got the lamb meatballs, guacamole with plantains and a huge chicken salad. That place is great!
After dinner, we walked around town watching the celebrations. There was some sort of event being held in one of the squares where people were holding candles and there was a stage with dancers and singers, so we stayed there a while to watch.
After walking the town for a while, we headed back to the hostel but not before Alyssa could get some frozen yogurt. At this place, you choose a fruit and they blend it into the yogurt right in front of you; it was pretty tasty!
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