Tolu or not Tolu

At first when I showed up here in Tolu I was super disappointed because everyone had told me how crystal clear the water was and that the beaches were beautiful. The first thing I saw was the dirty waves breaking on stone walls with 10 meter stretches of beaches separated by breakers. I couldn't imagine how this could have become so touristy with all the hotels and people on the streets selling beach souvenirs. And I didn't bump into as many tourists as I expected for the 'high' beach season. After walking up and down the coast that first afternoon I thought about leaving the next day and heading to the next place to get to Panama, but I figured I should try to find out what this place is all about. I bought a ticket for a tour around same islands for the next day. I figured for 45,000 Pesos (about$25) I couldn't lose too much.

That night all the people came out from wherever they were hiding in the day to celebrate the town's anniversary. They set up a huge stage in the town square and people started gathering and drinking in the square about 3 hours before the music. By the time the music started, the square was packed with more people than I imagined could have live there. After a couple of hours there the crowd started getting rowdy and all the young people started a water fight with the bags of drinking water that they sell for about 25 cents and cans of foam spray. It was actually refreshing being drenched by the water in the middle of the crazy crowd jumping all over the place. The concert host said the party would continue until the sun came up at about 5am, but around 1am there was a huge crack of lightening so strong it made your ears sting that started a torrential downpour in the same instant. The people (or well at least 90% of the more sane ones) stampeded out of the square but no one really made it the 100 meters or so to the shops around the square without being completely soaked. 10 minutes later the roads were rivers flowing so strong that you almost couldn't wade across it, and last but hardly least the power went out. I huddled under an overhang for 15mins before I made a mad dash across the river and down two short blocks to my hotel just praying that my camera would still work tomorrow.

The power didn't come back on that night but my camera did work and the sun did come out in the morning to be a beautiful blue sky day out to the islands.

The first stop was on the island of Mucura. These were definitely the beaches I was expecting. Hot, white sand, deserted beaches all around the island. The only unfortunate thing was the locals there that were so aggressive trying to get us to buy things that they actually got mad at the boatmen who brought us over when no one agreed to buy anything.

I took a little walk around the tiny island. For being such a small island it had more diversity than I thought. Good thing it was low tide because the 'main road' goes through the mangroves and  I don't think I could have found my way through it without seeing the 'road'.


Then to the deserted beaches!!