The Colombian Isle of Pirates
The travel agents tried to tell me not to…
On a bright morning this past August my fiancée and I found ourselves departing the the Cartagena commercial marina on a long narrow powerful motorboat full of other tourists. Behind us the pyramidal bulk of Cartagena castle dwindled away. To our right a row of skyscrapers sparkled in the sun, and then we were out in broad Cartagena Bay going the long way around the palm tree lined Isla de Tierra Bomba. We were bound for the Isla del Piratas in the Rosario Islands.
We were stubbornly going against the advice of the local travel agents. They had all tried to sell us day trips to the Rosario Islands (for $200 each!). When I had expressed my intention to forgo the island day trip and instead stay there a few days, the in-hotel travel agent had insisted that all the hotels on the islands were either incredibly expensive or terrible. I pulled up the one I was thinking of, the Isla del Piratas, which was only $70 a night, and she said, with disdain, that it had no beaches. Ah well. We’d stubbornly find out. I was assuming if we didn’t like it we could transfer to another hotel on the islands.
The Rosario and San Bernardo Islands are two island clusters off the coast of Colombia near Cartagena. It takes about an hour by fast motorboat to get there. Any search of “things to do in Cartagena” will prominently feature day trips to resorts such as Bora Bora on the island featuring white sand beaches, sunbathing, cocktails and dance parties. Booking such day trips may be the most temptingly profitable thing for local travel agents, but there’s actually dozens of hotels on the islands ranging from eco hotels (as low as $40 a night!) to many luxurious options.
Cristina and I have developed a selection process. I prefer places that look rustic, natural, serene; she prefers places that look like they have all the modern conveniences. At home I do a lot of googling with 40 open tabs, but on the hoof with just my phone I found the booking.com app easy to use for this purpose, scrolling through the options, looking up more information on the ones that looked good and bookmarking them. Then I propose my findings to Cristina until one meets her approval.
Our backgrounds probably account for our differing preferences. Originally from California, for me everything working properly is not a novelty at all, I can easily take it for granted and forego it for a place that offers other novelties. Cristina, on the other hand, lives in Venezuela where the power regularly goes out and the hospital where she works doesn’t even have running water, so if she’s going on vacation, she wants everything to work!!
So our compromise, the best balance of character and luxury, was the Isla del Piratas hotel on the small island of the same name. The rooms were thatched huts separated by leafy foliage, but everything looked elegant and there was consistent water and power. Despite the rustic appearance of the hut it had a nice bathroom with well maintained modern equipment. AC by ceiling fan. Cristina was worried about snakes falling on her from the exposed thatch above, which at first I thought was silly but then she said it had actually happened to a friend, and later pointed out lizards living in the thatch.
The Isla del Piratas hotel is half an island, which I believe officially bears that name, I can’t find any evidence it doesn’t. Nor can my best attempts at google-research come up with any information on pirate activity in the Rosario Islands except that it was “probably” a pirate haven as it’s convenient to trade routes in and out of Cartagena and the broader region.
The travel agent had tried to warn us off Isla del Piratas, if you’ll recall, by saying there were no beaches there. That was true, strictly speaking, in that there was no place where the sand declined steadily into the waves, but there was plenty of shallow sheltered space just beside the island for swimming and enjoying the water.
The water was crystal clear, the temperature (of both the air, the water, and the combination thereof) was perfect. We’re not big drinkers but the hotel bar could happily provide cocktails at a decent price. In fact within the first hour, while we were swimming in the water, a young man in a canoe came by selling pina coladas to swimmers, which he made with fresh coconuts he had on hand.
The skyscrapers of Cartagena are just visible from the shore here, glinting on the horizon when it’s clear. In the evening a rain squall swept through, mostly missing us but could be seen continuing in the distance amidst constant flickering lightning. Some of the lightning lingered long enough that if one of us wasn’t looking the other could say “look lightning!” and by the one could look up in time to still see it. And I can report the roof thatch is entirely waterproof.
The next day while we were swimming a fellow came along in a motorized canoe and asked us if we wanted to go snorkeling and have a tour of the islands. Why yes. Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication, I thought the price he quoted was in total but it was for each, so the total price we ended up paying him was over $200 which is out of all proportion to how much things cost around there, but that’s the worst we got taken advantage of in Colombia and it could have been worse, and perhaps its fitting to encounter a pirate on the Isla del Piratas.
First he took us to a sheltered coral reef area and provided snorkles and fins and we went about looking at the many pretty fish for awhile. Then we stopped at the island’s public beach, which is very nice and has two hotels fronting it. And then we continued on our tour. We passed a floating bar that was very busy with several small boats that had pulled up to it. The coast of the island is still mostly forested-looking but is also almost entirely occupied with one resort hotel or another, or fancy private residences — Shakira’s house was pointed out to us as well as some other singers and sports figures’ abodes. Then we came it a massive overgrown and crumbling hacienda — Pablo Escobar’s house!
Pablo Escobar is famously from the Colombian city of Medellín, the name of his cartel was the Medellín Cartel after all. And he probably had numerous mansions around the country but this was definitely one of them, and I could well imagine a favorite for its location. I’m rather surprised no one has either pulled it down or renovated it, on an island where real estate is surely a premium it just sits there a haunted ruin.
On an island just beside his hacienda he had an airfield — this location was both a luxurious residence for him and his family and a very convenient drug transhipment point with easy access to the sea and air. When his fortunes crumbled around him the Colombian navy took over the airfield and currently run a naval air station there.
In the waters just off the end of the runway there was a sunken aircraft about six meters down. Our guide said it was a crashed drug plane, though with a bit of googling (never take local guide’s word for things) some sites say it was intentionally sunk there. Our guide handed us the snorkel gear again and we dove around the plane. I could get down as far as to touch the upraised wing but much further and my head began to hurt worryingly.
The next day a different fellow with a boat came along offering similar snorkeling and touring services (for much more reasonable prices!). We just let him take us to the oceanarium on one of the far islands. Here there were a number of large penned areas in the ocean beside this small island with collections of local sharks, rays and large local fish in them. We caught a bit of a dolphin show. For the two of us it cost $24 admission to the oceanarium and $25 for the ride there and back.
I learned a thing about local currency conversion. By the official exchange rate of about 4100 pesos to the USD, the 80 kilopeso admission should have been just under $20. When I pointed this out to the semiofficial guy selling tickets on the dock he scoffed and said “maybe on the mainland but that’s not the exchange rate here, here it’s 3500 to 1”
For the next day’s excursion I wanted to go to the Tunel de Manglar. Which sounds like some “mangler’s tunnel” but its a narrow channel into the mangroves. Cristina wasn’t enthused about this, saying it sounded mundane and boring. I almost made a joke that they paddle through the mangroves regularly in Caracas, but then she elaborated that yes, her family used to live in a coastal town in Venezuela where she would, in fact, literally paddle a boat through mangroves to the store every day because it was closer and easier that way than walking. But to humor me she came along.
Our boat driver (same from yesterday) took us along the southern side of the main island and then into a quiet cove without hotels, all sides thick mangroves, and into the narrow channel of a creek. He shut off the engine and we listened to the birds and insects, gurgle of water and occasional plop of something falling in from the trees. He couldn’t take the boat much further but I asked if I could swim, he said sure, and so I let myself into the water and swam in further.
I disappeared around the bend and after awhile hauled myself up on some roots to rest. I was enjoying the serene solitude when I started hearing voices and the splish splash of paddles from further in. Presently another little boat came along:
They were very surprised and amused to see a random person by themselves in the mangroves. I was able to greet them in Spanish but when they asked me a question I had to answer an apologetic “no habla español” and they continued along laughing. If I were to do it all again, I would try to book this paddle tour of the mangroves rather than the motor boat that couldn’t enter.
By and by it came time to depart. We planned to go to the coastal city of Santa Marta next. When we were asking the guy manning the front desk about how to get from the marina to the bus station in Cartagena he said he could arrange a ride for us direct from nearby Baru all the way to Santa Marta for $275. I’m sure the bus would have cost us a fraction of that but would have involved a lot more discomfort, and fortunately I’m in a position to no longer be a penny pinching backpacker so sure let’s go.
A boat arranged by the hotel just for us took us to the mainland shore at the nearest point, the Baru peninsula. From there we actually crossed through the peninsula in a mangrove tunnel nearly as impressive (but much less serene) as the one from the other day, to the town of Baru. Baru was a thoroughly local town of sometimes impassible roads and little houses with heavy bars on their windows. Here our driver picked us up and we were off! And that’s a story for next time!
