Punta Faro Here We Come

CLICK HERE: TODAY'S PHOTO ALBUM

Before I begin, let me say that both roofs, on the house and shed, are now fully repaired!! Thank you Al and Tim. Could not have asked for more efficiency than that - especially with more weather on the way. All Geoff has to do now is put Kilz on the guestroom ceiling and paint it. No biggie (I think). Oh, and we still need to fix the fence. Steven should have that done when he gets back from Belize.

Woke up with plenty of time to walk to the square to get some more water and bug spray. So far we haven't really seen any mosquitoes  - but that doesn't prevent me from getting bit -- how does that work??!! Took some neighborhood pictures - although the casa we return to in a week is not all that far from here.  When we return, I will write more about Cartagena and it's colorful history.

Our new driver came right on time. Angela, our first woman driver and she is a hot ticket. Liked her right off the bat. We drove through the old city down to the Regatta Hotel to register for the boat trip to Punta Faro, a resort on Isla Mucura. Got a good look at Boca Grande, the beach side of the city. Lots of huge hotels, Miami style, with the beach across the street. Very busy and somewhat crowded. People peddling everywhere. Oh that reminds me, traveling yesterday, Henry mentioned that the folks who want to sell you stuff while you are in traffic are mostly from Venezuela. We saw quite a few interesting items for sale yesterday -- a facet, some bike parts, baby wipes, and of course, all sorts of food and drink.  

Anyway, Angela drops us off at the Regatta (we will see her again when we return to the

city). We register, then are told to wait for the bus to take us to the boat. There is now a small group of us. The bus comes and takes us back to where we pretty much started from. Our hotel was right near the port. We paid the port tax and boarded this 33 passenger speedboat. We had a total of 14 people including crew so it wasn't crowded. However, two hours in a speed boat on open ocean going close to 30 mph - there's not much to do. Not like you can get up and walk around, or even talk for that matter, the engine noise is pretty loud. So we sat back and enjoyed the ride. 

Eventually Punta Faro pulled into sight and it was a thing to behold.  No mountains or hills or ecohabs. There is a welcoming breeze -- when we left Cartagena it was stifling. We were greeted with coconut water -- straw through the fruit and a welcoming talk from our host and owner, Martin. There is no music, so as not to distract the tranquility of the place (however, I was hoping for dancing at night -- oh well) - there are no keys - we are all family and so on and so forth. All the meals are included and we started today with lunch -- excellent. That's a good sign. Everyone is very attentive, it is a bit overwhelming. We are hut people, and not used to the finer ways of life. Guess we will have to get used to it - ho hum. They even chopped the meat out of our coconuts!

After lunch, we were taken to our room. Oy Vey! This will not do. I had asked several times for an ocean view and was told by our agent that none were available but that the garden view was lovely. The garden view is a view of the communal path that everyone walks by. This is the only view with no privacy whatsoever. You have to keep the curtains closed all the time. Back to reception. There was a lot of conversation between the desk clerk and Martin. Finally Martin comes out and goes through this unnecessary explanation about their room structure and says there is only one other room available. Let's go see it.

Fully private, ocean view, ac, with deck and hot water shower that is to die for. We'll take it!! We negotiated the price a bit for the three days we are here. This room is so beautiful that the thought of going to another ecohab wasn't cutting it. After much back and forth of going to another island after this, it was finally arranged that we would go to Playa Scondida on Isla Grande -- more rustic huts.  Back to reception we went to find out if we could keep this room for two more nights (by the way, I asked our agent about doing this as well and was told they were fully booked). Martin said, of course. I am not sure what is going on here -- why we were told one thing to find out something entirely different.  In any case, we are now trying to cancel our previous reservation and just stay put. Which, after traveling around so much, would be wonderful. It may be a minor miracle that this suite was available, but it could not have come at a better time. 

The wifi is broken here for now so we got the guy at the desk to call our agent and try to arrange everything. With all that business done, we went back to our room to do some wash and then it was off to the beach. Perfect white sand, not crowded at all and again, lots of attention - especially when it was happy hour. They have an activities board so there is other stuff to do than just hang at the beach. We are looked forward to taking advantage of it all! Looks like we found ourselves a piece of paradise.

Dinner was in the garden by our room. After dinner, we wondered around some more. We are getting the lay of the land here and checking more stuff to do. Wifi is back, such as it is, so we are back in communication again. All in all a very good day indeed. Looking forward to our time here at Punta Faro.

Next time... Under the Sea