Rosarios and Cholon 10:09.72N 75:39.70W
Pacific Bliss
Colin Price
Wed 8 Sep 2010 16:57
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Islas Rosarios and Bahia de
Cholon
Having got to South America life seem far more
interesting, musical and colourful. It didn't really occur to us that we
would be spending time in South America,but now we have had a taste for it we
have extended our trip to include mainland Equador, which i have to say I
am totally thrilled about. The music and sounds of Categena have been my
favourite thing about our time here, So very different to Europe and the US and
the Carribean. Throughout our trip the ubiuquitous 'Party Boat' full of
drunk touristas seems to be a theme, which whilst often amusing, with the
crass sounds of western music blasting out, keeps us awake most weekend evenings
and nights and this does start to wear thin. In Bonair the Bikers Club
which seemed to wind up at about 3am to include the rev-along AC-DC night every
weekend was quite something. But now in South America the music and sounds
are altogether new and refreshing. In a country were there is no social
service everyone sells something it seems, whether it's the ample bottomed fruit
seller pushing there rickety carts through the street, shouting there
immenent arrival, or the ding a'ling of the ice-cream cart coming down the
road, you know who is coming even if your busy cleaning the decks
200meters away. We loved being in a City once again. I finally
fullfilled a life time desire by becaming a lady who lunches. This
is due to lunch for the family being 10,000 Peso the equivelent to £3. So
other than boiling some porridge for breakfast and an egg for supper the head
chef has been on holiday.
We left Cartagena a week ago now and have been hanging out on a small island just off the main land, Islas Rosarios. We exited along with the big boats through the main shipping channel, Boca Chica.  Islas Rosarios is a collection of small islands
about 15nm South of Cartegena with a rather mixed identity. The
entire coast line is given over to large houses,a bit like the Bosham, and to
that ends it is Columbia's version of Bosham, ie all of the houses are owned by
the wealthy of the country. However a good 50% are in a state of
Dereliction and having circumnavigated the island with our dingy and 3.5
horsepower engine (very slow) we met a few of the home owners. These guys
where pretty flash, allegidly ex presidents sons, distributers of Sony and
crocs in the country etc. etc. But the bottom line is a lot of the wealthy
houses where owned by the narcotics traders and now things are abit more
accountable houses have been disowned and abandoned. Being a little
unusual, British and having kids on board rather than anything obviously
odd. We get invited places and ended us having drinks in one of the
houses. The Wife a Columbian from what seems like an old rich family like
the ones in Marques's novels and her Dutch husband with a rather odd shade of
strawberry hair. They were holding a buisness meeting weekend with
combination of fellow utch/german/southamerican friends, call me
suspicious but Nazi connections sprung to mind, I suspect having blond
haired blue eyed kids aboard helped with the invite................... But
you do see stuff.
   The juxtapoistion between old and new is right
there. Dugouts with a background of skyscrapers
  The interior of the Island was a very very different affair, the houses made our rat infested shed at home look like a palace. Colin was in search of the town but I think we standing in the middle of it. The decaying School seemed like the Catholic Church forgot it decades ago and all the local kids looked really very 'rangy' with sets of eyes looking in opposite directions. The most peculiar and wonderful thing we found on the island was an aviary, This can only have been some rich hobbiest ornatholagiests dream. The birds were kept in wonderful conditions. We had hopped over to the Nazi's house to say we would love to come to drinks pre lunch but first we wanted to visit the aviary, so we where given a guide who lead the way through single track dirt paths, the only tracks or forms of road around the interior of the island, despite the wealth on the fringes of the island this is poor. There is no running water, sanitation or electricity and no obvious generators either. The island had a definite Sunday morning feeling to it, with cooking fires just being re-stoked and folk lathering up in the middle of the yard and with bucket of water being thrown over there heads. The night before we had a very sleepless night as a thunder and lightning show decided to give us a display over our heads. Flash-to-bang, zero seconds! So whilst it was a little bit too exciting for us with a mast, the locals looked like washing day had come early. I think the barbed wire washing line will hold true to be the most unusual I'll ever see. Anyway back to the aviary, we found the place by walking through somebody back yard, with our guide, and then over a crumbling wall, this is no obvious tourist destination. There must have been about 50 large bird houses, with max of 20 birds in each. the collection ranged from weaver birds, parrots, falcons, pheasants, owls, tocaans, herrons and emus. Plus weired and wonderful stuff we couldn't identify.               Cholon
I hate leaving places but the time had come to
make our short hop across to Cholon, weather not looking ideal but a bit
of rain doesn't always spell desarster when at sea. But the channel into
Cholon is unknown to us and we're a little unclear if you can trust the channel
markers, especially when you discover they are mostly submerged, and
you wouldn't want to miss them as there is plenty of coral around.
 This was our chart for navigation. Pretty
hairy.Once in it's a lovely peaceful, calm
anchorage with great holding something you don't get in Cartagena, So
we can rest easy here. We have arrived to hear there will be a happy hour
on an old Shrimper, Manetea, moored in the Bay, it's a bit of
a celebrity boat, it's owned by an ex LAPD motorbike cop turned
cruiser turned local resident and looked after and run as social
area for the cruisers here. But sadly after the announcement on the VHF
net about a happy hour, it got cancelled by Johnny the boy who
runs the ship as it was suspected that he had forgottne to get any ice. Z
and I are able to pursued Colin into inviting the four other boats in
the bay for a BYO happy hour on PB which turns out to be great as we
meet our new next door neighbours, and again they are
lovley, kind, helpful and good company. How do you say
Colombian-o-file? I am certainly becoming one.
Not much happens here other than
the afew guys in dug outs unable to take no for an
answer.... But then we take a trip to see the local town,
it's not your average trip into town, and luckily for us Colin
has got afew way points to navigate our way through the mangroves and
reefs, we find the roads paved with shells and coral, but really they are
just hard standing over the mud. It's our first sight of normal life in
Columbia. The village, Baru, must have had it's hay day during the
1930's as the architecture that dates back to then looks
prosperous but now it's all falling in to a state of disrepar,
with donkeys, rangie dogs and Pigs foriaging the streets, and back water
mangroves. The kids are certainly seeing the world.
 Mangrove passage
on the way to Baru.  Sorrel house by the sea.
  Downtown Baru
   Our first experience with getting
deisel. No more petrol station nozzles. Here the fuel is poured from
a large can into a bucket or used 1gallon water jugs and then into our
cans.
Its done like this everywhere we go now.
 We moved back over to the main land two
days ago, to a lovely safe, stable anchorage, where the kids were
able to drop their Optimist in the water and sail around the bay, it's perfect
conditions, Z started at 7am yesterday before breakfast and the minute her
cereal had been downed she jumped back on saying she was going to sail all day
and not come back to do school, as it was Saturday, it seemed like a
pretty good idea to us. When we left the UK Zinnia was really rather
shy, she certainly wouldn't ask for something at a restaurant, She
always got Cosmo to be the mouth piece. Yesterday we where able to see the
transformation. When she sailed up to other boats to say hello, and step
aboard for a chat (none of the other cruisers here have kids aboard)
but Z appearances on boats yesterday seemed capture peoples hearts. Pretty
cool have your own independant form of transport to get away from your family,
aged 8.
 We are finding it hard moving on from places at
the moment, the pace of life really has slowed to a sluggish rate, suspect
the size of my thighs will increase too due to our chilled out life style.
In the next week we should reach Panama and the San Blas Islands, we are
anticipating taking this part of the journey very very slowly, it's very
remote to travelers the only access to a lot of these places is only by sea so
we are expected to see a very strong cultural tribe, We have to ask each
village chief if we are able to anchor near his village and he is expected to
only let you stay a few day, with only a few boats visiting per year the
inhabitants and chiefs and keen to keep it isolated.
Must go now got to start cooking Scones for our Sunday afternoon tea visitors all the way from Dundee (Kate and DJ from s/v Hello World) Then it's anchors up and off to yet
another island ever nearer to Panama.
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