Playa Blanca

The beaches around Cartagena are not so nice, you have to go a bit further to find a decent beach, Playa Blanca is one of the popular ones, reachable by boat or by land, but the land trip is quite complicated so I opted for the boat, the beach is very beautiful, with turquoise colored waters, and generally tranquil atmosphere, though there are many people trying to sell you stuff on the beach, sometimes they can be quite annoying, but some of the stuff they offer is quite nice, I had a full body massage on the beach, and those home made coconut sweats that some women sell are just delicious, I stayed at a place run by Gilberto, a french guy, you can order food at the hostel or at Jose's restaurant close by, both serve delicious dishes of fresh fish, you sleep on a hammock, or you can get a bed, but I decided to try for once sleeping on hammock in the open, I slept quite well on the hammock, but in the morning my neighbours mentioned that I spoke a lot during my sleep, I don't usually do that, but apparently sleeping on a hammock does induce extra dreams than usual, apparently one of them was quite emotional and I spoke out loudly during. Although the waters have a beautiful turquoise color, the visibility in them is very limited, I had brought my snorkeling gear, but I gave up on snorkeling quickly because of the bad visibility. The place does not have a proper showers, and generally the whole experience is quite pure, electricity is only on for a couple of hours during the night.

I decided one night was enough for me and decided to head back to Cartagena, the boat fair going back was half that of coming, anyway there is no dock around so getting in the boat is a tricky ordeal, you just have to jump in while the waves are getting you wet and causing the boat to move around, I got half wet in the process, now when you buy a ride on one of the boats, you think you are getting a transport back to Cartagena, what you are really getting is a thrill ride on a speed boat in a turbulent sea that just happens to take you to where you want to go, I got completely wet during the ride, but I guess it was kind of fun.