I awoke just before dawn and stepped outside to see our small Colonia street begin to wake up. Off the terrace, I could see a woman sweeping the sidewalk in front of her doorway. Another headed off to work. Further up, headlights lit up as a motorbike purred to life and rolled down the otherwise quiet street. I sat down for a while, going over some details for the days’ excursions and finishing my first post on the island.
Eventually, Maggie woke up. She was so exhausted from the night before, and we had nothing specific planned today. So I thought I’d let her sleep. It was almost 9:00 when she awakened, and I was starving. We first had to catch a cab back to town to pick up our golf cart. I’ve found that staying in the actual residential part of the island makes it a bit difficult to find an unoccupied cab. The tourist section is on the north end, and there is a park and ruins to see on the south end. The neighborhoods where we are staying are in the middle of the long thin island. The island is only 4.3 miles long and only around a staggeringly tiny 2,130 ft wide for most of its length. Most taxis we see in the neighborhood are usually full, with passengers being shuffled between the two tourist ends of the island.
The tiny island boasts very few cars, 140 registered taxis, a few public service vehicles such as police vehicles, ambulances, and fire services coupled with a few dozen private cars. However, the congestion during the day can be daunting. There are roughly 60,000 residents on the island who mostly move around by motorbike, and the rental places have a fleet of 1,060 golf carts that are up for rent each day. That’s a lot of traffic for such a tiny island.
The only way onto the island is by ferry or hired boat, and you can see the car ferry’s bussing in service vehicles like food trucks and such. Most tourists that come to the island are day-trippers from the mainland, and the ferries only operate during standard business hours. The port completely shuts down at 5:30 p.m. This, combined with only a few small hotels on the island, means that the beaches empty a couple of hours before sunset, and the locals reclaim the island. The island transforms into a quiet, peaceful, isolated paradise. No one leaves, and no one enters.
We began our day by picking up our golf cart and heading to Mango’s near our apartment for what is said to be an incredible breakfast. It did not disappoint. I was pretty hungry, and Maggie was downright hangry. So we parked the golf cart on the street near the restaurant and headed in. It was minimal, only 8 tables or so, and they were all occupied. It did have a friendship bar facing out of the open windows, and we posted up to watch the activity in the street and have a delicious breakfast. Maggie was in the mood for something light and refreshing. On the other hand, I was interested in the breakfast Relleno I had read about the day before. We looked around at the neat decor of the restaurant, license plates from all over the world, guitars, and classic Mexican crepe paper hanging from the ceiling. Our food arrived, and we enjoyed our delicious breakfast in the tropical morning sun.
After breakfast, we headed south in our golf cart to Punta Sur. The southern tip of the island where the intercostal waterways clash with the often violent crash of the open Caribbean Sea. This is where the Ancient Mayan ruins once stood, but in recent years a rash of hurricanes have raised the ruins to ruins. In its place, the local government commissioned to have iron art erected on the site inspired by the Mayan civilization. We paid our 30 pesos to enter and began to wander the grounds. We came across the mighty Iguana Statue, which is like the mascot of the region and all of the residents he represents. Iguanas are like squirrels here, only they lay around on the sidewalks and in the streets, soaking up the warmth from the concrete ovens. I can’t tell you how often we would walk down the sidewalk and disturb one. They lay so still and almost blend in with the grey hues of the sidewalks and streets that they startle you, especially Maggie, when you get within a few feet of them, and they come to life and scurry off. Unfortunately, like squirrels, you see them occasionally flattened on the street in their failed attempt to cross the road.
Further down the point was a pathway that led down the rocky cliffs and along the shore. We wandered the path and explored the grottoes and little caves that dotted the cliffside. We then explored some of the sculpture pieces in the garden on the point. Unfortunately, what was left of the ruins was almost nonexistent, and it caused a sense of melancholy that the sea had consumed such an important piece of human history.
On the way out of the park, we grabbed a drink and jumped back on the golf cart. Further up the west coast of the island, we care across la Tortugranja or the turtle sanctuary. After finding a place to park our car, Verde, we paid the 30 peso admission fee and headed inside. The sanctuary was a bit rustic, but you could get a sense that some real work was being done here. The juvenile turtles weren’t in the largest spaces, but they were protected to adulthood and slowly incorporated into the open sea. There were many nesting sites that the sanctuary protected from predators (and people) and pools and tanks that housed them in every stage and size to maturity. A small Aquarium area also housed a few locals, a moray eel, a rather large spiny lobster, and some local fish. It was pretty educational, with lots of information on life cycles and the conservation efforts the organization was doing. It wasn’t the grandest of places, elementary as I said earlier, but highly effective.
After some time in the sanctuary, it was time to move on. The next stop would be Ice Bar, an incredible tourist trap of a place, not my usual type of experience, but I thought Maggie might find some interest in it. It was a short drive further north and a massive compound with restaurants, massage huts, spas offering feet cleaning by fish. Yes, you heard that right, you sit in a big cushioned chair and dip your feet in a tank of fish, and they nibble off the layer of dead skin. I tried my best, but Maggie just wasn’t interested in such an experience. No, what we came for was the room where everything was carved out of ice: the chairs, tables, and the bar.
We donned our parkas, took a quick photo opp with the yeti, and stepped inside. I was surprised at how refreshing it was. The claim was that it maintained a temperature of -18 degrees. After stepping inside, it dawned on me that it was obviously in Celsius. It was a welcome experience after a day in the tropical sun. There was a bed with an Olaf stuffed animal, a throne, a golf cart, chairs, and tables, all carved in ice. Sculptures dotted the walls, and even the glasses were ice. We both ordered a drink and looked around at all the ice sculptures. The only lighting was led’s embedded in the ice walls, and it gave the whole thing a rather 90’s rave feel. It didn’t take long for us to feel this novelty spot, and we decided to get back on the road.
We found la playa lancheros (boatmen beach) and playa tiburón (shark beach) just a half a kilometer further north. These waters were very shallow, and there were actually sharks you could swim with and lots of boats with men scurrying around just off the shallows. We swam around for a bit, but these beaches were not as wide open and sandy as playa Norte had been the day before. So we headed back on the road. Maggie did most of the navigating, so we weaved around the neighborhood streets until finally coming to the island’s downtown area. We parked the cart, bolted it down with the chain provided, and began exploring the streets.
We almost immediately came across the town cemetery, and I am always fascinated by these things. Being an island, all the graves are above ground, and the mausoleums and family plots were beautiful. I explained to Maggie why the graveyard was like this, and we walked around to look at the gravesites. It is always interesting to see how other cultures take care of their dead. We strolled the grounds, and it conjured up images of día de Los Muertos celebrations I participated in years ago. Making and decorating sugar skulls and baking pan de muerta. The Mexican culture is always so rich and colorful.
After our short cultural excursion, it was time for the beach to Maggie’s great joy. I negotiated an umbrella and two chairs, and we spent the rest of the day lounging near or splashing in the sea. It was hot, bright, and beautiful. The water was absolutely perfect. That kind of crisp is incredibly refreshing and slightly cold when you first get in, only to realize it’s Lukewarm. The sun combined with the water temperature here gives sitting in a hot tub then jumping in the pool. At first, it’s shockingly cold, then calmingly perfect. We bobbed up and down in the boat produced waves for hours. The boat channel is so close to the beach that the boats produce waves on the beach. The water on this side of the island is so calm it is almost flat all the way to the mainland. A turquoise blue, you can see to the bottom for what seems like an eternity.
We had lunch, I had a couple of beers, and we just relaxed and swam. Finally, the sun began to fall to the horizon, and the breeze was beginning to put a slight chill in the air. We had about an hour left on our golf cart rental, and Maggie wanted to spend it just riding. So we gathered our things and hit the road. We explored more streets and took a few photos along the way. After turning in our rental, we took a cab back to the apartment. We walked up to the corner restaurant and ordered a specialty pizza that seemed to have been created for Maggie. Thin crust with lots of cheese, pepperoni, and carne asada. We stopped at the tienda on the corner, grabbed some drinks, and headed back to the apartment. After that, it was dinner time, shower time, then bedtime. I don’t know who was more exhausted, but in the time it took my head to reach the pillow, my dreams were filled with hues of blue and orange and silhouettes of palm trees.
