Sister Act II by Kim Sadler

Tolú –

The small Caribbean beach town of Tolú is a town based around tourism, but unlike many of the places we had already been, this town was popular with Colombian tourists. It was recommended by my coworker who is from Medellín. It was really my first experience with the ‘culture shock’ people kept asking me if I had experienced in the bigger cities (I had not – this could also be due to the experience and helpfulness of my two travel gurus, Beth and Jason). We stepped off our bus into the humidity and heat of the Caribbean, which I welcomed with open (and un-jacketed arms) and were quickly surrounded by fast talking, Caribbean-accented (harder to understand) bicitaxis wanting to take us wherever we wanted to go – but us not really knowing where our hostel (or where we were yet), it was a bit overwhelming. We decided to take the bici-taxis, loaded one up with a heavy load of backpacks and Jason (the least heavy of the load) and peddled off (well, they peddled).

It became obvious there was only one place in town gringoslike us stayed anyway, as we were called to throughout the trip “Villa Babilla” – our hostel complete with kitchen, and many outdoor areas, including a great rooftop deck, a serious dog named Scooby, and an adorable kitten, Pistachio.

We did our usual walking around everywhere in the town, which was filled with school children in uniforms (we peaked in at their outdoor classroom), barefoot people everywhere, mototaxis, collectives (small, local buses), restaurants, shops, and street peddlers. We walked along their boardwalk where I bought a pretty shell bracelet, and turned around at the hotel we had been told marked the spot where gringos should no longer go. OH, and we got some juice. I can’t remember the specific kind, but with that juice, my love affair with Colombian fruit juices had begun, and I became semi-obsessed. I mean, they are literally the best juices I have ever had in my life, with all kinds of new (and some familiar) fruits – zapote, lulo, maracuyá (ok, that’s passion fruit, but maracuyá sounds so much more exotic), guava, mango, and zapote, zapote, zapote ~ if you couldn’t tell, that one was my fave.

Though the beaches left something to be desired (no long stretches of white sand here, but there were small patches of dirt-colored sand~), the sunsets were beautiful and the Caribbean vibe relaxed.

We took a bus to "Ciénaga de la Caimanera” to enjoy a very relaxing canoe trip through a mangrove (mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes 25° N and 25° S. – thanks Wikipedia. ) forest?, swamp? I am not quite sure what to call it, but it was very pretty and relaxing for everyone but the man rowing the boat. They took us through a little labyrinth path to a floating house of sorts where we took in the lovely view, bought an ice cream for a cute kid name Fry, and Jason and I sampled freshly-shucked oysters from the river. I was a bit nervous about accidentally ingesting river water, but luckily all was well. And the oysters were quite delicious with a nice, non-spicy cocktail type sauce-

Also of note, it seems as a main tourist attraction they are holding some cute sloths hostage in the main plaza banyan tree. You can spot them if you look up into the tree cluelessly for many minutes, then the locals figure out what you are doing and point them out to you. The reason I believe they are being held hostage is because Beth and I witnessed one poor guy’s failed attempt at escape, as he clung to a telephone wire for his poor little life, while being yanked and eventually dropped from a bit of a distance onto the floor (Sloths have no strong legs to land on – poor guy) – then was carried by the neck (cat-style) back to his tree of imprisonment. On the other hand, it was super cool to see a sloth up close like that!

Another note: the mannequins in Colombia all have large breasts... and I just really love this picture (as did the store security guard, who laughed at us)