Colombia: Buenaventura

From Cali, we drove to Buenaventura to see whales, as they are found off the coast of Colombia during this time of year in August. The bus ride took about 4 hours. Buenaventura was recommended to us by my teacher at the Spanish school in Bogota to observe the whales. However, she didn't tell us that Buenaventura is considered the most dangerous city in Colombia. We only found out later. But as soon as the bus entered the city, it became clear what a dump it was. The city is completely run down. The center of the city is the port, from where apparently a large part of Colombia's illegal businesses are conducted in addition to legal ones. It became very clear that it is an unsafe place when we arrived at the hotel and found the reception and the receptionist locked behind bars.
Well, we came here just for the whales, so we decided to leave this unsympathetic place as quickly as possible.

The next day, we went to the port, which was near our hostel. We booked a tour there that would depart from an island. The boat to this island would leave at 12:15. We were instructed to wait at the boat piers until a certain Hector would show up. So we waited... for a long time... too long... eventually Hector showed up and said, no, the next boat wouldn't leave until 13:15. So I went back to the counter, where the lady assured me that it would still be easy to see the whales at 13:15 and return from the island on the same day. She told us to just ask for a David when we arrive on the island, he would take care of everything. So we set off on the crowded boat and on rough sea. And it took... a long time... too long... When we finally arrived on the island, we actually found this David. But the problem was that he didn't seem to feel called to help us in any way. As it turned out, there apparently wasn't a boat anymore that would go to the whales that day, we were too late. It was really frustrating. Not only could no one tell us how we could still see the whales, none of the staff members wanted to help us get back to Buenaventura either. And once again, it was other locals who intervened to help us. So we kept after this David until he started calling around. And behold: another boat with a group of people came, which would go to see the whales and then return directly to Buenaventura. We were able to join this group. As it turned out, it was a group of young people from Israel. They were very reserved and kept to themselves, so there were few conversations. Anyway, we finally went out to see the whales, and we were lucky! The first whales appeared after just a few minutes! Very impressive!
Unfortunately, the boat started heading back after a short time. Our Israeli colleagues began to protest vigorously. Apparently, they had been promised an hour with the whales, but we were only there for about 20 minutes. So they had also been scammed and they expressed their anger, much to the annoyance of the lady who accompanied us on the boat. Jörg and I were also promised more time with the whales, but we were tired of complaining and were already grateful that we hadn't come to Buenaventura for nothing and still had the chance to see the whales. After all, the next day we had to return to Cali so as not to miss the salsa circus "Delirio"!
When we returned to the port, we went back to the lady at the counter and complained about the situation once again. At least she gave us typical Colombian sweets as compensation, which were really delicious. Well, at least we saw whales and got something sweet. That made up for the nerve-wracking experience a little bit.

And so we left Buenaventura again, because there really is absolutely nothing else to see there!