Colombia, day 13
First of all, I need to apologize for the mistake I have made in the first 12 stories. I am travelling in Colombia and not in Columbia, as I was made aware shortly. This letter makes all the difference. I even say a specific tee-shirt in Cartagena to expose the mistake. The only excuse I found is that in German we say Kolumbien and not Kolombien. Weak, I know.
We spend the day on the beach and visited the other side of the paradise, the side where the garbage is sorted, the fishes are cleaned and cooked for the hundredth of tourists. As in many paradisiac locations, it is better not to visit this other side as it is quite depressing. It cannot really be different if you imagine a sandbank that separates the ocean from a swamp of salted water. The swamp is more of less the drain for the kitchens. It seems that at least the sewage is collected in specific tanks.
In the rainy season, most probably, the swamp overflows in the ocean which provides for an annual "cleaning up".
We were told that soon the beach should be back, I mean a beach that is larger than a few meters. It seems to disappear yearly due to the hurricanes that hit the region regularly in November. The beach disappears, washed out by the hurricane. It takes some time, a few months normally, for the ocean to bring the sand back and reconstitute the beach, or something similar. The difference is quite staggering. I know that in France, due to the storms they have to rebuild the beach in Springtime, which they do with a lot of effort and mechanical support of baggers.
Tomorrow, we move back to Cartagena. The end of our holiday on the beach.
