Sick in Cali

We moved for our last day in El Choco to a different place, 8km away from the town at the beach. There is a turtle sanctuary where you can observe how they free small baby turtles they protected against birds and stray dogs and watch them walk into the ocean. On the day of our arrival we found a baby turtle on our own tho!

She was so small and needed so much time from the beach to the water.. poor little dude. But we watched her all the time (about 45 minutes). We would have loved to just carry her into the water but if she has to make the way on its own, else she won't know later where to lay her eggs.

If there are baby turtles, the mamas can't be far! They come out at night and lay their eggs in the sand. We were at the very end of the season so our chances were low but we still tried.

Around 8 in the evening we started, equipped with a special flashlight which has the normal, bright, white light and can switch to a red, really weak light which allows you to see maybe 2m. The red one doesn't disturb the turtles while they are laying their eggs.

So we walked on the beach searching for turtle footprints. If there is just one row of footprints, it means the turtle is still somewhere, if they lead back to the ocean... Well then u need to swim to see her 😂

We found 3 individual turtle footprints over 90 minutes (were super cautious not to trample on their nest of course) but had no luck with a 🐢. They need about 30-45 minutes to lay all their eggs but we just got unlucky.

The next day was chill, some swimming, arranging things to leave the area and getting motorbike lessons! Since I want to drive motorbike in Vietnam, I'll look out for opportunities to learn a bit in advance.

We were told that the speedboat would leave at 1 o clock after midnight on the 24th, so we arranged a car to drive us to the place at 23:00. Long story short, they left at 4 o clock, without even texting me (we had WhatsApp contact the day before?!) and slept three hours in the harbor. Then we went back to Buenaventura by speedboat. That only needs 6 hours instead of 22-24 but is VERY bumpy. You guys probably know this feeling in an airplane when it makes some weird noises and you think 'oh I hope we're not going to crash' but know that in the end it's all gonna be alright? Well I was like 'oh I hope this fucking boat isn't going to crack in two pieces' and realized that we payed some dude who's only money income is this boat and probably will haul ass with it until it breaks and no one cares when it sinks. I was really worried. Buuuut in the end we arrived good in Buenaventura and had this amazing sight.

We then hitchhiked to Cali, which worked super well again.

Cali has this huge street parties but they cost A LOT of money to enter, about 60€. And I'm not really willing to pay that money when I'm not interested in Salsa and big crowds are going on my nerves, so I went to some Techno Event in couch surfing instead, which was pretty cool.

And the next day it came. For the first time of the trip I got sick. Hanna as well. We got the shits and started at 6 in the morning to basically go from bed to bathroom until we were completely empty. I still think we ate something bad but cant really figure out what it was. Anyway, that was pretty awful but in the evening we could already eat cookies and drink something else then tea.

The next day was better. We have not been sick but still felt weak, so watched some Netflix and left later in the evening to see a bit of Cali.

Here are some pictures:

Now I'm sitting in a Cafe and will leave Cali soon, again by hitchhiking. Next destination: Popayán. Old, beautiful architecture and a big ass volcano crater.

So far so good,

Love and peace,

Laurin