Known for beaches, reefs and secluded islands, Tolú (to-LOO) had all the hallmarks of a good place to spend a few days. We found camping in the parking lot of Casa del Mar, across the street from a sandy, west-facing beach, ideal for sunsets.
Tolú is a small town, its streets laid out in a rectangular grid that hugs the beach. Most of its tourists are Colombian, many coming up from Bogotá for a long weekend of sun and warmth. Colorful kitsch spilled out shops along the town’s malecón (boardwalk) and alongside the central Plaza Bolívar. Every restaurant offered ceviche (more on that later).
Adrift on a Dead Reef
Roughly an hour away by boat lie the islands of the Rosario and San Bernardo Corals National Park. Snorkel gear in hand, we hopped aboard one of the pangas that ferry tourists back and forth. By sheer force of iron will (seasickness pills), I managed not to throw up during the ride.
The ferry deposited us on Isla Tintipan, the largest of the group. A couple restaurants and a gift shop occupied the beach, acting as a barrier to any exploration into the island’s interior. We sought a boat to bring us to the reef a short distance off the island’s shore. The “captain” we found was a tall young man named Orión, who rounded up a gaggle of tourists into his boat and jetted straight to the reef.
We didn’t need to peek under the water to know that this would be a very different reef experience than previous ones. Passengers leapt out of the boat and planted their feet directly on the shallow reef. From below, the corals were a grey mass of dead and shattered pieces. A few fish swam among them nonetheless, but there was little of the colors and diversity that we had seen in Panama.
We broke the surface to get our bearings just in time to see the boat driving away. What the fuck, we motioned to Orión. Fifteen minutes, another passenger motioned back. We looked to shore and figured that we could make it. Twenty-five minutes later, Orión returned and ferried us to shore.
One curiosity on our ride back was Santa Cruz de Islote, which claims fame as the most densely populated island on Earth, thanks largely to its tiny size.
“Ceviche”
I’ve successfully dodged food poisoning throughout the past six countries and countless instances of street food, so I suppose I was due. Still, this instance was entirely avoidable. We sat down at a beachside restaurant and I finally gave in to the restaurant hawkers’ incessant offers of ceviche. What the waiter brought looked like no ceviche we had ever seen before. Shrimp and onion stuffed into a thick, pink sauce, served in a clear plastic cup with a side of saltines. Appetizing is the wrong word to describe it.
Having ordered it, I nonetheless determined to try it. Jordan wisely declined. The flavor was…not great and although I refrained from finishing the cup, the damage was already done. I spent the night in an aerobic state of exiting the car and sprinting to the toilet, no simple task in our set-up. I’ll hope that this was a lesson learned.
Mátalo!
On the mainland, we did our best to enjoy another ruby red sunset. This statement would sound sarcastic were it not for the machetes. As the sea reclaimed the sun from the sky, Jordan turned at something I didn’t hear. They have machetes! she shouted, leaping to her feet.
Two teenagers ran past us, chased by a larger group of machete-wielding youth. Mátalo! a girl shouted at one of the machete slingers. Kill him!
Jordan bolted across the beach to our campsite, from where the restaurant staff watched behind the closed gate. I hung back to go around the group the other way as they passed. In the end, both of us reached the campsite, where the staff had just discovered that their gate had no lock.
We never really found what happened. It seemed like a teen couple on the beach resisted an armed robbery, enraging the robbers. The target of the assault, a kid of maybe fifteen years, tried climbing a fence and one of the machetemen cut his foot during the escape. We found that out while he hid behind our campsite. The wound was substantial. A deep gash cut through layers of fat and muscle, running vertically down the inside of his right foot.
Those of us camping moved tents and vehicles closer together and chatted about the state of things in Tolú. A Colombian woman wondered if the assault was drug related, as the area was known as narco territory. The next day dawned clear and bright and we bid farewell to the interesting adventure that was Tolú and accelerated towards our next adventure in Medellín.
