Wed 6th 1757 In hotel in Monteria. Today basically OK but also bit crappy.
Woke up 4amish and power was out, incl any backup, so no fans. Got back to sleep, woke up 8ish semi-without alarms, showered and shaved and packed etc and think I checked out 9ish. Handed key in person to the guy who checked me in who insisted on coming up to check the room - I came with him - and he didn't raise any issues so I left.
Met Joanie and Garry at boat place next door, long story short my bag wasn't weighed as I guess obv under 10kg but as I had squashed everything in it it didn't fit my ordinary bin bags so I had two loose and tied them badly on with a broken big one J+G gave me. I had no idea you were allowed a hand baggage itself so I could prhaps havbe just taken the whole bag on or at least could have put some stuff in daypack to a) avoid losing the lot and b) have a main bag small enough to be tied up in a normal bin bag and thus less likely to be lost. Easy to visualise tag being lost or bag falling out into water as they grasped it via plastic bag. This didn't happen but I was mildly fretful.
And the boat left about an hour or 1.5h late. Semi lucky I was with a group of people I knew as it helped a bit. Some interesting gambling games being played in main square type bit by dock.
Load of migrants went out on another boat while we were waiting.
Boat itself fine, bit dull but fine. Staff handed out bags and was joyfully reunited with mine and as it was "our" bus, no problems with delay - guy lead us over the four blocks, he told me to take my bag on on seeing it and as I was only one for Monteria and it fit nicely in overhead rack and there was aircon on bus. I nearly but didn't fell asleep. No chat on bus and as I got off rather hurriedly (luckily the bus pulled in v close to hotel, not at terminal at least at first) and some ppl were asleep mainly said goodbye to G+J who I may see in Bogota, and a certain amount of awkwardness avoided as a result tho also mild shame not to say goodbye properly.
Got to hotel fine, it is v low budget and doesn't even seem to have a name but I got checked in and though woman seemed to just take my price and originally thought i had a fan room I got a room no prob. It is windowless and the sink appears to be stuck to the wall with chewing gum but it is air conditioned (altho I only just got it going now at 1815ish with much fiddling from reception woman and it seems impossible - she couldn't either - to change temp from 25C) and there is a washing area out on the terrace bit which I used just now without asking permission (no signs saying I can't) and I have a load of clothes out on line to dry.
When I got checked in I was and cointinued to be a bit whiny. It is hot. I went out to nearby supermarket from GM - oh, the street door is bolted and you have to summon the woman to go in or out, and I asked and there is a fridge behind reception but nowhere else (aren't hotels great? hostels really so much nicer esp if you can get a private). I didn't see any restaurants on my walk to supermarket and having eaten a lot yday I said sod it and got some bread and ham and a biggish bottle coke zero 1.5l and 2l cheap water and came back and put coke and 1l water in reception fridge and came back to room and ate a ton of mortadela sandwiches with lukewarm water, then forced myself to go do the washing, then spoke to woman re aircon and am now writing this.
Definitely being a bit of a whiny fuck. Feeling a bit better now. dreading writeup of boat trip on this tiny keyboard but will try to just do a bit and get started. fingers hurting so going to have a yt break for a bit now. later will have coke and some rum (will use a spare plastic bottle to mix and drink out of, so I can keep bulk of coke plain) as a reward once i do first bit of writeup but let's have break first.
Oh, my Spanish is very halting and crap when I'm talking to this woman somehow. Or generally. But I guess I am getting the point across.
1854 Feeling a bit tired but anyway.
So Fri 1st, first day of tour. IIRC despite a premature celebration of solid BM, I remained watery and went a couple of times that morning to try to purge myself. I was mostly free of "ffs gotta go now all of a sudden" worries tho was careful if I had to fart and except for iirc 2nd day (of which more later) I didn't take any medicine.
Nothing to do with me but the bloody hostel toilet filled and didn't empty when I flushed it, and I used toilet brush to try to unblock and there was no plastic cap on end of metal brush handle and it cut a sort of semicircular flap of skin on right palm. Not a huge deal but not a great start.
Lots of milling round waiting for cars and I felt a tiny bit BNM but not too bad. I think we maybe left 530-6ish. I ended up in back seat in "boot" with one other guy (who was a big chap and he coped with virtually no leg room v well) but didn't freak out and it was OK. We stopped off at a supermarket in PC suburbs (prob) while dark and no one wanted to go in so we just pulled back out, then we stopped at one nearer to Carti in daylight and unless my perceptions have just grown over the time since it was somehow gringo central. Most Americans I meet are *not* like these stereotypes, but it just felt like this supermarket and the loads of tourists (I have to assume daytrippers to the islands, given SBA are main and perhaps only longer provider from Carti) bovinely buying snacks and dressed in their standard issue American tourist gear was just kind of weird.
The road up to the dock was nothing like I expected, it is windy towards end but the surface is v good and they are doing work on it and it's nothing like the Baru road and probably not much different than some of the route between Changuinola and David.
Finger break.
Not saying all those tourists were actually American, I am just guessing. But the point is that unlike just about everywhere else I've been the sensation of this supermarket presumably almost entirely catering to the island-Carti tourist trade with the car park filled with stereotypical looking US tourists was strangely impactful.
[Oh, when I checked in here there was some confusion over my "residencia" . I think there was an element of language problem here, but also I suspect there are actually very few foreign tourists at this hotel. It took a bit of fumbling for the idea that I'm a tourist to get across, despite my obviously imperfect Spanish - maybe she thought I was an expat.]
I put my bandanna and sunglasses on when we were milling at dock and had a piss/shit - you had to pay 0.25 and I really didn't want to break a bill and get stuck with change but Martin (IIRC) just gave me a quarter which was nice of him. Some delay - mostly I think everyone with "big" bags waiting their turn with the one roll of waterproof tape - and then we got on the boats.
We had two, as it turned out everyone stayed on same boat whole trip. By chance I ended up on the larger/faster of the two, IIRC the "D(arien) Gapster" and also named equiv in Kuna and registered out of Anila (where the Kuna crews were from). By chance I ended up on back of four rows, second from left (a full row was four people, tho sometimes we'd only have three to some rows - prob about 14ish of us in boat). because we were faster than other boat and we have to travel together we'd end up having little floating rest stops to let the slower boat catch up and pass us. I thought at first this was to give us a break, but it wasn't (and as day two showed, in some ways those breaks are not comfortable when water is roughish). Anyway, I kept my eyes on the horizon etc and seasickness not an issue. There was a *lot* of water spray and I got drenched and the salt water was getting in my eyes despite sunglasses and into my mouth a bit etc and it was kind of uncomfortable but also kind of fun. On later days I sat in various other places but also learned tricks like holding my hand over my mouth to help keep salt spray off or (when at left edge, which prob due to direction of travel prob gets way more spray than right) using a spare lifejacket to hide behind and break the spray.
Sod it, gonna go get my coke and have a drink and maybe a bit of YT. Hope to do more later but this is at least a start. Main tour guide (Lane (US), also we had Noa (sp? Belgian?) and it turns out those two are paid and we had one unpaid volunteer who I didn't see much of at first called Milo who might have been German) was in our boat BTW, and she sent out at request of someone a list of all the islands in Kuna (I can half remember translated names but not most original) on WA today so I will use that as a ref when writing these notes.
2002 Had bit of coke and rum+coke. Still feel bit tired and may well have earlyish night. But will write up a bit more.
All the islands turned out to sell cold beer - they had ice - and coconuts to drink juice of and sometimes other things. First island was pretty small and I could and did walk round the whole thing about twice. I felt a bit BNM but not too bad. There was snorkelling option on this island but long story short I joined the "group snorkel" after lunch and abandoned it almost immediately. Nice Swiss chap called Severin (who had met with the other 2 Swiss guys at PC hostel Mamallena) did help me a bit and I mucked around slightly in the shallows. Long story short this day plus another attempt on iirc day 3 failed primarily because my bandanna was stopping mask from connecting properly with my skin and it would leak. Severin also said to me on last night pizza at Gecko last night he had been thinking about me wrt this and at least one snorkel he had had some sort of problem with the fishtail and that means water gets in your mouth. He had told me on day 1 if it did to just blow hard to get it out but although sometimes I was fine sometimes water would get in and no amount of blowing would help. the currents on the first island were pretty strong even by shore (sort of cool and educational to experience this). Anyway, Noa was leading the group snorkel and he said not to stand up as you might eg tread on something that paralysed your foot for three days and I also suspect they went way out of depth where you could stand and given the difficulties I was having I bailed almost immediately and mucked around near shore for educational purposes with some help from S. TBH both this day and on day 3 my snorkelling failures started a mini "depression-ish" spiral (everyone else can do this, ffs, all those swimming lessons also don't seem to have done much good, etc) although to give myself credit I did fight this off and on the whole tho I had my usual "am I annoying people?" doubts when socialising with large groups I think I generally did OK etc etc. And in reality I think considering I had never done any snorkelling at all before and was making a silly in hindsight mistake with bandanna (S only noticed this and told me on day 3 so no chance to try fixing it) and should have sunblocked my head instead, I did at least have a go and so forth. (Plus it is a bit stressful/panicky swimming back to shore after fucking up with a leaking mask holding fucking water over your face and I didn't cope too badly.)
Incidentally I didn't swim "normally" on the islands - where an option it was also a snorkelling poss and I was "saving" myself for that, plus I'm shit enough and felt self conscious enough plus safety concerns with currents plus maybe illness contributing that I didn't try to get any "normal" swimming in.
Lunch was pretty good, some (rather vicious-looking) whole mackerel with bread and some misc iirc rice-ish and fruit-ish stuff to add to bowl. I think this first lunch I sat a bit aloof but we weren't all round a big table and I did also have vague illness concerns. Oh, all the islands have primitive toilets on tho there wasn't always toilet roll, I could prob have got some from staff but I did have some modest quantities with me so it was fine. This first island was Ordub, golden island (name we were told and I did guess correctly when told this that it is one of few Kuna words similar to Spanish) - oh, "dub" is as written but to my ear this sounds like "doop" when spoken.
Break for more c/rc and YT and I may or may not write more later tonight.
2212 Been watching YT, may move towards bed soon. At least have started writeup.
Plan for tomorrow is to get up 9ish if I can but not force it. Need to decide where am going (vague options are Sincelejo (sp) or Medellin or somewhere en route to Medellin), I may wander down by river and over to bus terminal tomorrow and see what's happening and then decide. Also hope to relax in room - which is kind of OK for money really, now ac is working (I just opened door to check and it still feels oven-like outside) - and write some more up. I also hope to be a little bit leisurely touristy and have some coffee and/or juice and maybe spend some of the loose change I'm accumulating and hopefully find somewhere nice and cheap for lunch and tho I'm not getting worked up *if* I find a cheap barber I will go in and get my hair cut.
Oh, looking at photos, Abyneleck (sp) is the other boat - I did ask and this is the name of the owner's son or something like that, unlike our boat the name is not "meaningful" , it's a name (like having a boat called Jane or whatever).
2315 Should go to bed. Feeling OK really. As I said was being a bit of a whiny bitch (to myself) earlier but have kind of bounced back.
FWIW guide book doesn't mention Sincelejo (sp, not checked). I *could* head over towards Mompox then south down the road from there but gut feeling is that Medellin or ideally somewhere intermediate (even if it's not in guide book) is next stop.
I kind of don't care/anti-care about weekends as they may raise accom prices. The sort of stuff I like (hikes, meeting people in hostels and chatting in with a few beers, language exchanges) are mostly weekend-independent. I am not looking to go out to bars/clubs and it's lively cos the locals are out on Fri/Sat night too. (*Might* be nice under rare circs where eg I meet people to go out with, but not something I really want to plan for.) So I have no concerns about eg getting to Medellin in time for the weekend; as long as I am going places I want to go, I am going to mostly ingore this and dow is what it is etc.
2330 OK, bed. Will just say - in part wrt snorkelling observations earlier but also later in trip stuff - that other people do (and I don't think this is just a perception on my part) seem to feel generally way more confident in the water than I do (even tho most are presumably not massively "into" swimming and doing 4h open water swims or triathlons or swimming 60 lengths twice a week or whatever), but even if that's true I am still way better than I was approx 9 months ago and even if my progress is distressingly/annoyingly slow there's no reason I shouldn't continue to improve and who knows where I will be after (say) another 9ish months and maybe at some point with or related to improved proficiency I will find myself suddenly realising that I'm actually not that "scared" any more.
Woke up 4amish and power was out, incl any backup, so no fans. Got back to sleep, woke up 8ish semi-without alarms, showered and shaved and packed etc and think I checked out 9ish. Handed key in person to the guy who checked me in who insisted on coming up to check the room - I came with him - and he didn't raise any issues so I left.
Met Joanie and Garry at boat place next door, long story short my bag wasn't weighed as I guess obv under 10kg but as I had squashed everything in it it didn't fit my ordinary bin bags so I had two loose and tied them badly on with a broken big one J+G gave me. I had no idea you were allowed a hand baggage itself so I could prhaps havbe just taken the whole bag on or at least could have put some stuff in daypack to a) avoid losing the lot and b) have a main bag small enough to be tied up in a normal bin bag and thus less likely to be lost. Easy to visualise tag being lost or bag falling out into water as they grasped it via plastic bag. This didn't happen but I was mildly fretful.
And the boat left about an hour or 1.5h late. Semi lucky I was with a group of people I knew as it helped a bit. Some interesting gambling games being played in main square type bit by dock.
Load of migrants went out on another boat while we were waiting.
Boat itself fine, bit dull but fine. Staff handed out bags and was joyfully reunited with mine and as it was "our" bus, no problems with delay - guy lead us over the four blocks, he told me to take my bag on on seeing it and as I was only one for Monteria and it fit nicely in overhead rack and there was aircon on bus. I nearly but didn't fell asleep. No chat on bus and as I got off rather hurriedly (luckily the bus pulled in v close to hotel, not at terminal at least at first) and some ppl were asleep mainly said goodbye to G+J who I may see in Bogota, and a certain amount of awkwardness avoided as a result tho also mild shame not to say goodbye properly.
Got to hotel fine, it is v low budget and doesn't even seem to have a name but I got checked in and though woman seemed to just take my price and originally thought i had a fan room I got a room no prob. It is windowless and the sink appears to be stuck to the wall with chewing gum but it is air conditioned (altho I only just got it going now at 1815ish with much fiddling from reception woman and it seems impossible - she couldn't either - to change temp from 25C) and there is a washing area out on the terrace bit which I used just now without asking permission (no signs saying I can't) and I have a load of clothes out on line to dry.
When I got checked in I was and cointinued to be a bit whiny. It is hot. I went out to nearby supermarket from GM - oh, the street door is bolted and you have to summon the woman to go in or out, and I asked and there is a fridge behind reception but nowhere else (aren't hotels great? hostels really so much nicer esp if you can get a private). I didn't see any restaurants on my walk to supermarket and having eaten a lot yday I said sod it and got some bread and ham and a biggish bottle coke zero 1.5l and 2l cheap water and came back and put coke and 1l water in reception fridge and came back to room and ate a ton of mortadela sandwiches with lukewarm water, then forced myself to go do the washing, then spoke to woman re aircon and am now writing this.
Definitely being a bit of a whiny fuck. Feeling a bit better now. dreading writeup of boat trip on this tiny keyboard but will try to just do a bit and get started. fingers hurting so going to have a yt break for a bit now. later will have coke and some rum (will use a spare plastic bottle to mix and drink out of, so I can keep bulk of coke plain) as a reward once i do first bit of writeup but let's have break first.
Oh, my Spanish is very halting and crap when I'm talking to this woman somehow. Or generally. But I guess I am getting the point across.
1854 Feeling a bit tired but anyway.
So Fri 1st, first day of tour. IIRC despite a premature celebration of solid BM, I remained watery and went a couple of times that morning to try to purge myself. I was mostly free of "ffs gotta go now all of a sudden" worries tho was careful if I had to fart and except for iirc 2nd day (of which more later) I didn't take any medicine.
Nothing to do with me but the bloody hostel toilet filled and didn't empty when I flushed it, and I used toilet brush to try to unblock and there was no plastic cap on end of metal brush handle and it cut a sort of semicircular flap of skin on right palm. Not a huge deal but not a great start.
Lots of milling round waiting for cars and I felt a tiny bit BNM but not too bad. I think we maybe left 530-6ish. I ended up in back seat in "boot" with one other guy (who was a big chap and he coped with virtually no leg room v well) but didn't freak out and it was OK. We stopped off at a supermarket in PC suburbs (prob) while dark and no one wanted to go in so we just pulled back out, then we stopped at one nearer to Carti in daylight and unless my perceptions have just grown over the time since it was somehow gringo central. Most Americans I meet are *not* like these stereotypes, but it just felt like this supermarket and the loads of tourists (I have to assume daytrippers to the islands, given SBA are main and perhaps only longer provider from Carti) bovinely buying snacks and dressed in their standard issue American tourist gear was just kind of weird.
The road up to the dock was nothing like I expected, it is windy towards end but the surface is v good and they are doing work on it and it's nothing like the Baru road and probably not much different than some of the route between Changuinola and David.
Finger break.
Not saying all those tourists were actually American, I am just guessing. But the point is that unlike just about everywhere else I've been the sensation of this supermarket presumably almost entirely catering to the island-Carti tourist trade with the car park filled with stereotypical looking US tourists was strangely impactful.
[Oh, when I checked in here there was some confusion over my "residencia" . I think there was an element of language problem here, but also I suspect there are actually very few foreign tourists at this hotel. It took a bit of fumbling for the idea that I'm a tourist to get across, despite my obviously imperfect Spanish - maybe she thought I was an expat.]
I put my bandanna and sunglasses on when we were milling at dock and had a piss/shit - you had to pay 0.25 and I really didn't want to break a bill and get stuck with change but Martin (IIRC) just gave me a quarter which was nice of him. Some delay - mostly I think everyone with "big" bags waiting their turn with the one roll of waterproof tape - and then we got on the boats.
We had two, as it turned out everyone stayed on same boat whole trip. By chance I ended up on the larger/faster of the two, IIRC the "D(arien) Gapster" and also named equiv in Kuna and registered out of Anila (where the Kuna crews were from). By chance I ended up on back of four rows, second from left (a full row was four people, tho sometimes we'd only have three to some rows - prob about 14ish of us in boat). because we were faster than other boat and we have to travel together we'd end up having little floating rest stops to let the slower boat catch up and pass us. I thought at first this was to give us a break, but it wasn't (and as day two showed, in some ways those breaks are not comfortable when water is roughish). Anyway, I kept my eyes on the horizon etc and seasickness not an issue. There was a *lot* of water spray and I got drenched and the salt water was getting in my eyes despite sunglasses and into my mouth a bit etc and it was kind of uncomfortable but also kind of fun. On later days I sat in various other places but also learned tricks like holding my hand over my mouth to help keep salt spray off or (when at left edge, which prob due to direction of travel prob gets way more spray than right) using a spare lifejacket to hide behind and break the spray.
Sod it, gonna go get my coke and have a drink and maybe a bit of YT. Hope to do more later but this is at least a start. Main tour guide (Lane (US), also we had Noa (sp? Belgian?) and it turns out those two are paid and we had one unpaid volunteer who I didn't see much of at first called Milo who might have been German) was in our boat BTW, and she sent out at request of someone a list of all the islands in Kuna (I can half remember translated names but not most original) on WA today so I will use that as a ref when writing these notes.
2002 Had bit of coke and rum+coke. Still feel bit tired and may well have earlyish night. But will write up a bit more.
All the islands turned out to sell cold beer - they had ice - and coconuts to drink juice of and sometimes other things. First island was pretty small and I could and did walk round the whole thing about twice. I felt a bit BNM but not too bad. There was snorkelling option on this island but long story short I joined the "group snorkel" after lunch and abandoned it almost immediately. Nice Swiss chap called Severin (who had met with the other 2 Swiss guys at PC hostel Mamallena) did help me a bit and I mucked around slightly in the shallows. Long story short this day plus another attempt on iirc day 3 failed primarily because my bandanna was stopping mask from connecting properly with my skin and it would leak. Severin also said to me on last night pizza at Gecko last night he had been thinking about me wrt this and at least one snorkel he had had some sort of problem with the fishtail and that means water gets in your mouth. He had told me on day 1 if it did to just blow hard to get it out but although sometimes I was fine sometimes water would get in and no amount of blowing would help. the currents on the first island were pretty strong even by shore (sort of cool and educational to experience this). Anyway, Noa was leading the group snorkel and he said not to stand up as you might eg tread on something that paralysed your foot for three days and I also suspect they went way out of depth where you could stand and given the difficulties I was having I bailed almost immediately and mucked around near shore for educational purposes with some help from S. TBH both this day and on day 3 my snorkelling failures started a mini "depression-ish" spiral (everyone else can do this, ffs, all those swimming lessons also don't seem to have done much good, etc) although to give myself credit I did fight this off and on the whole tho I had my usual "am I annoying people?" doubts when socialising with large groups I think I generally did OK etc etc. And in reality I think considering I had never done any snorkelling at all before and was making a silly in hindsight mistake with bandanna (S only noticed this and told me on day 3 so no chance to try fixing it) and should have sunblocked my head instead, I did at least have a go and so forth. (Plus it is a bit stressful/panicky swimming back to shore after fucking up with a leaking mask holding fucking water over your face and I didn't cope too badly.)
Incidentally I didn't swim "normally" on the islands - where an option it was also a snorkelling poss and I was "saving" myself for that, plus I'm shit enough and felt self conscious enough plus safety concerns with currents plus maybe illness contributing that I didn't try to get any "normal" swimming in.
Lunch was pretty good, some (rather vicious-looking) whole mackerel with bread and some misc iirc rice-ish and fruit-ish stuff to add to bowl. I think this first lunch I sat a bit aloof but we weren't all round a big table and I did also have vague illness concerns. Oh, all the islands have primitive toilets on tho there wasn't always toilet roll, I could prob have got some from staff but I did have some modest quantities with me so it was fine. This first island was Ordub, golden island (name we were told and I did guess correctly when told this that it is one of few Kuna words similar to Spanish) - oh, "dub" is as written but to my ear this sounds like "doop" when spoken.
Break for more c/rc and YT and I may or may not write more later tonight.
2212 Been watching YT, may move towards bed soon. At least have started writeup.
Plan for tomorrow is to get up 9ish if I can but not force it. Need to decide where am going (vague options are Sincelejo (sp) or Medellin or somewhere en route to Medellin), I may wander down by river and over to bus terminal tomorrow and see what's happening and then decide. Also hope to relax in room - which is kind of OK for money really, now ac is working (I just opened door to check and it still feels oven-like outside) - and write some more up. I also hope to be a little bit leisurely touristy and have some coffee and/or juice and maybe spend some of the loose change I'm accumulating and hopefully find somewhere nice and cheap for lunch and tho I'm not getting worked up *if* I find a cheap barber I will go in and get my hair cut.
Oh, looking at photos, Abyneleck (sp) is the other boat - I did ask and this is the name of the owner's son or something like that, unlike our boat the name is not "meaningful" , it's a name (like having a boat called Jane or whatever).
2315 Should go to bed. Feeling OK really. As I said was being a bit of a whiny bitch (to myself) earlier but have kind of bounced back.
FWIW guide book doesn't mention Sincelejo (sp, not checked). I *could* head over towards Mompox then south down the road from there but gut feeling is that Medellin or ideally somewhere intermediate (even if it's not in guide book) is next stop.
I kind of don't care/anti-care about weekends as they may raise accom prices. The sort of stuff I like (hikes, meeting people in hostels and chatting in with a few beers, language exchanges) are mostly weekend-independent. I am not looking to go out to bars/clubs and it's lively cos the locals are out on Fri/Sat night too. (*Might* be nice under rare circs where eg I meet people to go out with, but not something I really want to plan for.) So I have no concerns about eg getting to Medellin in time for the weekend; as long as I am going places I want to go, I am going to mostly ingore this and dow is what it is etc.
2330 OK, bed. Will just say - in part wrt snorkelling observations earlier but also later in trip stuff - that other people do (and I don't think this is just a perception on my part) seem to feel generally way more confident in the water than I do (even tho most are presumably not massively "into" swimming and doing 4h open water swims or triathlons or swimming 60 lengths twice a week or whatever), but even if that's true I am still way better than I was approx 9 months ago and even if my progress is distressingly/annoyingly slow there's no reason I shouldn't continue to improve and who knows where I will be after (say) another 9ish months and maybe at some point with or related to improved proficiency I will find myself suddenly realising that I'm actually not that "scared" any more.
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