Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and the lovely Keira Knightley would have loved to be there! This was our programme today:
- Relaxation at Isla Baru, private beach
- the White Cocktail Reception
- Riding the Chivas bus
- Shaking the night clubs
Read on and get into the feeling…
Isla Baru: Our day began with a boat trip to Isla Baru. Boats should leave at 9:00 AM and the meeting was therefor scheduled to be at 8:30 at the Marina. After some searching for the right spot with the Waterboyz representatives walking up and down the harbour side and fighting off a legion of street traders we finally made it to the right spot and were cordially greated by the already quite large group that had crowded together. Soon afterwards a colombian combo began playing their instruments and introducing us to the lifely music. And they kept on playing, for nearly the whole boat ride, which took some 90 minutes. Each of the two boats was accompanied by two local women in colourful traditional(?) caribbean dresses and soon we should find out what their role was.
Having arrived on Isla Baru and after disembarcation, again the combo played their songs and the colombian ladies just mentioned began to prepare all kinds of fruits as a snack for the guests. At some other place, some of the local people prepared coco natural and coco loco* for us by decapitating coconuts and, in the latter case, by pimping up the content with some ice and lots of Ron and/or Aguadiente. Of course, Aguadiente was also served as welcome drink on the island.
* for the non-spanish speaking community: „loco“ means nuts and believe me, it is not the fruit that is meant by that.
So the time passed smoothly at the poolside with drinks when around noon our hosts started serving „pescado frito con platanos“, i.e. fried fisch (excellent!) with fried bananas (muy gusto!). So it would have been time for siesta afterwards, but then again another surprise came up: A group of young people, teenagers came up and with the help of their gettoblaster and major speakers started to play local dance music. For example Reaggeton. Well, you may not have heard about that before, but I can assure you it looks very interesting. Movements are, hm, ah, kind of explicit and the roman catholic church and Mr. Schoenborn probably would have freaked out when seeing this. Maybe I’ll put a small video at some later point in time on this website, but keep your children out of reach when watching.
Well, after 200 decapitated coconuts, 300 beers and a lot of other drinks we started heading home again, feeling relaxed and curious for what the evening had still to offer. On the way back I could further improve my Spanglish with the Patricia, the bride’s charming younger sister.
The White Cocktail Reception: At 6 PM Matt and Andrea, the lovely bride and groom, had invited to Casa Pestagua (a splendid little palace right in the best quarter of the old town) for a cocktail. Guess, who was on time? Yes, the Fins, the Swedish and the Austrian were once more (nearly) punctual and this was our third encounter with Colombian time. Tero had already realised the system, but his calls fainted like the prophet’s voice in the desert wind 🙂
The cocktail reception: what a wonderful view: All the ladies in white and the gentlemen mostly wearing white shirts and light coloured chinos. The whole scene had some colonial touch and we enjoyed ourselves with beer, Ron, Aguadiente and what else was there at the bar.
Riding the Chivas bus: Some time later (I don’t remember any more, how much later or what time) the whole bunch entered the typical local tourist buses, still accompanied by the music combo of the day. We received maraccas (the funny instrument that makes „maracca“ if you shake it) and again ice, ron and aguadiente. So we rode two buses through town, having a fiesta on the ride and making bypassers watch the scene and feeling happy for us. Cool ride and plans are to import this to Sweden, Finland and Austria, maybe by creating an extreme version for January. After a short break at Club del Mar, a nice open air place right on top of one of the bastions at the city walls, the tour on the buses continued. Maybe a bit too early, since the dancers at the club had only just begun to fire up the crowd.
The Night Club: After hours and hours of partying we finally reached the night club. In fact, the day after I read about it that it was one of the more „silent“ ones – thanks for telling me so, I would not have guessed THAT. Anyhow, immediately after entering the club (we were all still dressed in white) we had our own area among the other guests, with seats, tables, etc. I am not sure whether there was a dedicated dance floor somewhere but then again, who cares? Exactly, nobody. Everybody was dancing right where they were, and where space on the floor didn’t permit it, well, there’s still space on the seats and there’s even more on the tables! So the party went on four hours and when fatigue stroke us, we (i.e. our small party of five) were among the first (of those who had survived so far) to leave again shortly after 2:00 in the morning. Rumour has it that the rest of the gang kept on for another couple of hours.