Made a short trip to Bahia Solano on the Pacific coast in Chocó Department. There are really only two touristic destinations when you land at Bahia Solano. I say land because as yet there is no road to the interior so access is by air or sea. Bahia Solano it's self is not at all touristic so you either go to the village of El Valle, an hour's ride in one of those three wheeled Indian Bajaj things (at least they're covered if it rains) or you go in lancha to Playa Huina on the peninsula. That's not a village like El Valle but just a lot of cabañas, some owned by paisas and two hotels, Refugio Mr Jerry at the far end of the beach , more of a lodge and a “resort hotel” at the near end with many small homes of locals in between. I've stayed at Jerry's a couple of times in the past. He was a Dutch guy and had everything from scuba gear to deep sea fishing available. I even had his wife house sit my finca once while I was in the US for a month. She brought up her sewing machine and used a shyte load of electricity making “designer bags” that she sold at a “boutique” in Cali and then charged me for “house cleaning” sheesh!. But I digress. Jerry was seventy when I first visited and has died of prostate cancer since. Evidently his wife Janeth has kept the lodge going.
Anyhow this time went back to El Valle which has much more impressive beach and tides. I was there seventeen years ago and it's hardly changed at all. I remember at the time thinking this is as far from the world as you can get and still be in it. One day the planta for the hotel (generator) quit (village had no electric at the time). The hotel owner, Adiela told me there is an old German living down the street with a big Black woman, he's an engineer and can fix it but he is drunk most of the time so we will have to await til he's sober. He did sober up and fix it the next day and we had light and cold beer again. He'd been illegal for years and thought they'd never find him there but they did and he was deported. El Valle is a poor village on the Chocó coast but has touristic appeal because migrating Humpback Whales pass close by during migration which lasts several months. They hole up with their young in a protected bay at nearby Parque Nacional Utría allowing close up views. This trip was a little early for the whales so we didn't take any tours to go look for them.
We did however take a tour with guide Francisco up a tributary of the Rio Tundó which empties into the sea at El Valle and then hiked through some fairly pristine jungle. Francisco was impressively knowledgeable about birds, plants and the rest of it and was surprisingly environmentally conscientious with a vision towards the future. He took us up river in the only canoa made of fiberglass which he had specially commissioned at great cost to him and his family. It came to five million pesos, a fortune to people of that village. He explained that the usual dugout canoes of the region, big enough to carry several passengers require cutting down the biggest and best trees and that most of the tree is wasted since the dugout only requires one half of the best part of the tree. Those dugouts only last four years and then they have to cut down another tree. Francisco was no stranger to important tourists. He said he'd taken Steven Hilty, author of the revered tome A Guide to the Birds of Colombia on the same tour three years ago.
Only in Colombia: the last afternoon we were lounging on the back veranda of the hotel overlooking the sand flats at mid tide when the nine year old daughter of one of the employees came over and started to chat. In fact she was a real chatterbox. She told a charming story about how she and a little friend had watched that morning as a sea turtle had crawled up on to the sand to deposit her eggs and after digging a hole and depositing them had crawled back to the ocean with out covering them. Our little chatterbox recounted that she and her little friend had then covered the eggs with sand themselves. Then in the same breath she said do you see those guys on the beach (several teenagers)? They're looking for coca.
Drug smugglers in “go fast” boats pass by on their way to Central America all the time and when they're spotted by the Colombian Coast Guard they dump the goods...which then wash up on the beach at El Valle. I'm sure the teenagers get a pretty penny from selling the packets they find.
No doubt as a result of the above there was an army squad camped just outside town. We saw them patrolling both the beach and the town. Everywhere they went they walked with about ten meters between them I presume to keep bad hombres from taking them all out in an ambush.
I thoroughly enjoyed my second visit and plan to return. However I would not recommend it to any one who is really sqeamish about third world conditions.
Hotel
Beach at El Valle mid tide
Late afternoon
Francisco's kids (the guide)
