Day 220, 221 - Playa Blanca, Colombia - Wednesday 23rd, Thursday 24th May 2012

Today we got the boat over to the beautiful beaches of Playa Blanca via the Isla Del Rosario. We (well Soph) had heard and read that playa blanca was one of the best beeches in Colombia so we thought it would be best to see it for ourselves! On our way down to the dock to buy our boat ticket we realised it was already 9.30am and the last boat left at 9am… So we hurried to the tourist information place in the main plaza to see if we could book for tomorrow. No need, the lady quickly chatted to a Colombia 'Del Boy' who said, quick follow me!! So we followed him down to the harbour along with another guy who apparently was his boss!? They then put us into a car and drove us to the other side of the harbour where a boat was waiting which was full apart from two seats for us. The boat was awesome, it was a long double engine speed boat and the crossing was fast and bouncy!! After about 45 minutes we stopped at Isla Del Rosario where you can pay $25000COP for a tour around the tiny islands aquarium, but seeing as we had seen a huge one in Oz we decided to just chill, have a drink and wait for the others to have the tour. Whilst waiting we saw Danielle who was doing the same trip but on the bigger slower boat, so we stayed with her until our boat was ready to leave. With the call of our boat name, we said goodbye to Danielle and planned to meet her later and a mere 30 minutes later the boat moored straight onto the white sandy beach of Playa Blanca. The water was beautifully clear with small fish swimming amongst our feet. Free with our ticket was lunch so we all got stuck into our full fish and rice dinners. As we hadn't booked anywhere to stay we took a trip up the beach and found Hugo's Place. He had hammocks for $10,000COP each per night right on the beach or a double bedded, roof top hut for $50,000C0P. We chose the roof hut and it was awesome with amazing views over the ocean and literally seven metres to the sea! We spent the rest of the day walking along the beach, chilling in the sun and swimming in the beautiful turquoise water. After all the sunbathing and walking we were pretty thirsty so we ordered a couple of pina colada's and dinner just in time to watch the sunset over the ocean. The day was pretty perfect! We headed to bed and oh god….. who changed our room into a sauna?!! Sophie described it as "The Hottest night of our lives - not in a good way!"

The next day we chilled all morning reading and relaxing and chatting with Danielle about visiting a mud volcano the next day, then boarded the slow boat back to Cartagena. The boat ride was pretty entertaining and the DJ was knocking back quite a few rums and doing a bit of salsa dancing on a makeshift dance floor!! Soph and I had a couple of choc ices and laughed at the dancing DJ! We docked back into Cartagena late evening and heading to our hotel for some well needed air con!!