Early on Saturday I took a bus to Buenaventura, it takes 3 hours and it costs 18.000 pesos one way (6.50 pounds). In Bueanventura's port I bought a ticket to a village called Juanchaco and from there I took another boat to do whale watching. I had a little interrogation right before Buenaventura because the police stopped our minibus and they asked everyone for ID. In Colombia you have to carry your ID with you all the time and you have to know the ID number by heart. If you don't, you have problems. I didn't have my passport with me so I was confronted with a lot of questions. When I mentioned that I was working for MIRA, the political organisation, they let me go. It was the third time I had the same problem because I always forget to print a copy of my passport.
The sea was very stormy and the 1-hour ride on the boat from Buenaventura to Juanchaco left me a little bit disorientated :)
Whale watching was very good but it wasn't what I expected. Well, you hope to see whales jumping above the sea surface, like they do in films. Ha ha ha... It was really hard to spot the animals so we had to stare at the sea, with our cameras ready to take a picture. Somebody shouted: "there, there!!" - so everyone quickly turned in this direction but it was already too late - the whale was under the water. Then somebody else shouted: "there, there!!" - and the story repeated. And like this for an hour. However, there was one great moment. About five meters from our boat a huge whale appeared. He showed us almost all of the amazing body, sprayed a great fountain of water into the air and dived in again. All the trip was worth just for this moment. In the picture: ready for whale watching.
I came back to Juanchaco, took a tractor (a public mean of transport) and I arrived in Ladrilleros, another village, where I met Paolo from Couch Surfing and his friends. They stayed in a hotel which was nice but it seemed expensive to me (50.000 pesos per night). I walked five meters further and I found a nice hotel called Dona Francia for more than half price less (20.000 pesos). Well, it was a flat with many rooms and as I was the only guest, I had all the flat for myself.... Sometimes I don't understand people - why would you book a hotel without checking prices of other hotels??
I thought that finally I could have rest and sleep - how wrong I was!!... In the evening we went to eat something and then we saw a great open air salsa club called El Templo del Ritmo, right by the beach, with a big advert on the door saying that it was salsa competition that night. I was expecting some professional couples to take part in the competition but I was wrong again... A man with a microphone introduced couples participating in the event. One guy was without a partner so he asked me to dance with him. Well, I took part in the first salsa competition in my life.... and after about 40 minutes of crazy dancing... the guy and I won the competition!!! I got 20.000 pesos prize. I left the hotel in the evening as nobody and I came back to the hotel as a celebrity ha ha ha.... I didn't have much sleep again but I was very happy.
In the club I saw a dance which I liked a lot. I heard about it earlier but when I saw it, I opened my mouth in amazement. There is a huge black community in Buenaventura because of the history. It was easy to ship the slaves to the coast, the community is so large that you see buses filled just with black people.
The dance is called choke, you dance it to the reaggeton music and it is performed mainly by black people:
Choke
The next day I met a guy I was dancing with in the club and we went for a walk on the beach. Then we met my friends in La Barra, another beautiful village. All the villages we visited seemed to belong to another world. There is no much technology, just wooden houses, jungle vegetation and the people live in a very simple way. I felt so relaxed... We had a swim in the sea and I chated with a lot of people on the beach (it is your duty when you are a celebrity ha ha ha...). In the evening we took a boat back to Buenaventura and then I took a bus to Cali. I arrived home late, extremely tired.
