Just before landing we realised that we were not by the coast, but
over a huge city! Where was the pacific jungle? This was concrete
jungle! As it turns out it wasn't a direct flight, but 2 connecting
flights: Pereira-Medellin-Nuqui. We finally landed in the tiny village
of Nuqui and walked out of the airport to find our hotel. From the
limited research that we had done, we were expecting a fairly
substantial tourist town, with good surf, and lots of boats heading
off to remote sandy beaches - the Eco-lodges in the area featured in
Colombia's 14 day whistlestop tours. We dumped our bags at the hotel
and headed off into town in search of an ATM and information about Eco-
lodges and tours. It soon became aparent as we wandered through the
streets that there was no bank, no ATM, no way of getting any form of
cash. Plastic visa cards were about as useful as a box of matches
under the sea :( the sleezy police told us we would have to fly to a
different town to get cash!! We found Internet and decided to call up
one of the Eco-lodges to see if they could accept visa or help us!
Within 10 minutes a lodge manager was knocking on the glass door of
our phone booth- obviously we were pretty easy to find 'have you seen
2 gringoes? That's right, the ones with no money...' He had been on a
shopping trip to the big city, and was heading back to his lodge, the
boat was waiting. A quick chat with John led to a very useful chat
with the lodge owner, who lives in Medellin city, he kindly agreed to
let us pay for the lodge and flights on arrival back in Medellin!
Phew! Crisis evaded. We thought we might need to sell all the digital
gadgets, wash dishes or worse to get back to civilisation. We grabbed
our bags from the hotel, paid the owner a few bucks by means of
apology for not staying, and ran to the boat.
As the boat headed out into the ocean, we were able to see the full
extent of the 'beautiful fishing village', it was actually more like a
slum built on stilts on a stinky swamp. We felt rescued!
We landed on the beach and were welcomed by a group of about 5
children! We were introduced to one of the girls by John 'this is my
wife'. She looked very young, but this is rural Colombia! We walked
along the beach towards the huts as the rain began to pelt down. We
arrived, drenched, and were introduced by John to another girl 'this
is my wife'. Right, two wives, both very young! There was no mistake
about it, over the following days we witnessed behavior that would
indicate he did have at least 2 wives, and possibly additional
girlfriends!
The boys at the lodge showed us around the area, the other lodges, how
to get coconuts down from the trees, beautiful waterfalls. We were the
only people there, the food was amazing, the ocean was rough and
beautiful. We visited some natural hot springs on the tiny village of
Termales.
Our first night, I was upstairs getting my torch and something caught
my eye. On closer inspection I realised it was a huge rat! That night
before bed we checked for it, no sign. In the middle of the night I
hear rustling! I turn on my torch and spot the thing jumping off my
bed-side table! It had been chewing my earplugs!!! We told John about
it in the morning - 'don't worry, the boa contrictor will find it!'
We had an amazing couple of days, very chilled out. Much needed after
all the buses we'd been on over the past week!
We left the lodge and went back to Nuqui on the boat, then flew to
Medellin where we met the owner, found an ATM, paid him, while Kirsty
got his contact details - he looked like Keanu Reaves! He had also
bailed us out of a potentially holiday destroying situation! He gave
us a mini tour of the city before we flew to Bogota, capital city of
Colombia.
Sent from my iPhone
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