The beach in Nuquí, Colombia
In the Colombian department of Chocó, tourist facilities are still a little underdeveloped. Is that a bad thing? True luxury is an empty beach, with whales breaching on the horizon. Travel journalist Jurriaan Teulings travelled to the town of Nuquí and wrote about it in our Magia Latina Magazine.
Jurriaan Teulings on Nuquí, Colombia
The small plane from Medellín has been in the air for barely a quarter of an hour when, beneath us, the Andes Mountains give way to a vast jungle. The greenery stretches in every direction, as far as the eye can see. Only when the blue of the Pacific Ocean comes into view do we begin our descent towards the coastal town of Nuquí. After a sweeping turn over the sparkling water, we skim so close to the jungle that I can almost touch the red flowers in the canopy.
Chickens are wandering between the airstrip and the terminal. A man holds up my name sign, and after a handshake, he carries my suitcase to a small boat waiting just outside the airport. A short while later, we set out onto the ocean, sailing southwards along the coast towards the La Joviseña ecolodge. There, I’m shown to my own little hut with a thatched roof, which borders a lush garden full of hibiscus and papaya blossoms. An inviting hammock hangs on the veranda. There’s no lock on the door. No need for one.
“ There’s no lock on the door of my little hut. There’s no need. ”
Dozens of pelicans
The beach is fabulous and teeming with life. At high tide, the jungle seems to tumble right into the ocean. With the surf hot on my heels, I weave my way between coconut palms and large rock formations. The highest rocks serve as vantage points for dozens of pelicans. Hundreds of little red crabs and hermit crabs scuttle across the mocha-coloured sand. People are few and far between. In the short hour that I’m walking, I come across only two children: a boy and a girl of about eight. Together we climb a rock and spot a pod of dolphins, swimming so close to the shore that we can look them in the eye.
Shortly after sunset, a bell rings to signal the communal dinner. We eat the day’s catch with rice and deep-fried plantains. At ten o’clock sharp, the electricity is cut off. It takes me by surprise; at that moment, I’m still lying in my hammock reading a book. Once my eyes have adjusted to the darkness, I walk down to the beach to admire the sky. In the balmy tropical night, there’s something syrupy about it, making the stars seem to float across the Milky Way like the bubbles in a lava lamp.
Surrounded by humpback whales
The next day, I set off on a long walk through the pouring rain. This region is one of the wettest on earth. Yet, even beneath the grey rain clouds, the beach is still beautiful. For hours, I walk past completely deserted bays and overgrown peninsulas; clambering over fallen forest giants and dramatic rock formations. I’m soon so soaked through that I can’t be bothered to take my shoes off to cross a small river.
The rain stops, allowing me to spend the last few hours of the day in a small boat at sea to see the whales up close. It takes a bit of searching, but after an hour we are suddenly surrounded by humpback whales. Their fins are covered in scars from their long migrations between these equatorial waters and those of Antarctica.
Natural whirlpool
In the evening, I got chatting to Carlos, a film director from Bogotá who was so on first-name terms with the staff that for a moment I thought he was the owner. But no, he explains, the owner is Maximiliano, a man in his eighties whose eight children and grandchildren manage the lodge and the surrounding land. It turns out that Carlos, too, has found his paradise here, ever since he was forced by a storm to spend the night in Nuquí twenty years ago. Since then, he’s been here as often as he can. Even at the start of the century, when the guerrillas and paramilitaries made the area unsafe, he kept coming. “Everything’s changing here – can you feel it too? Now that the war’s over, people here have to get used to tourism.”
He invites me to join him the following afternoon, along with two of his friends – film producers from France – on a boat trip through the jungle near Joví, the village north of La Joviseña. We navigate the shallow river in a chingo, a wobbly little boat that is, in fact, little more than a hollowed-out tree trunk. A slender, muscular lad at the bow deftly guides us through a few rapids with a pole. We sail up a small tributary with crystal-clear water, until it becomes so shallow that we have to continue on foot, with the flowing water lapping at our ankles. In about a quarter of an hour, we wade to the spot where the little river tumbles over two large rocks with great exotic splendour – a two-storey waterfall. The lower rock is about four metres high. On one side of it, the waterfall rushes through a gully just wide enough to stand in for a refreshing shower.
A roughly hewn flight of steps runs down the centre of the rock, with two ropes on either side which we use to carefully haul ourselves up to the second level of the upper waterfall. Here, the falling water has carved a small but deep whirlpool out of the rocks. One by one, we jump in with abandon. It’s like a washing machine: the swirling water pulls us in turn beneath the waterfall for a brief water massage, only to spit us out on the other side for the next round. Exactly what you’d expect from a tropical swimming paradise.
“ The little river tumbles over two large rocks, displaying great exotic splendour. ”
The missing iguanas
We return just in time for that afternoon’s whale-watching trip. This time, one of the giants treats us to a special moment by surfacing with its head, rather than the usual tail, breaking the waves. For a moment, we think the creature is about to make the photogenic leap that is used to promote the destination on tourist posters. But it remains just a teaser. Even so, it still makes for a magnificent spectacle in the late afternoon light, with the green, uninhabited coastline in the background. Over dinner, I speak to Carlos about the tourism that is set to arrive. He hopes it will develop sustainably here, for the benefit of both nature and the local population. He himself has plans for a protected breeding ground for iguanas. The area used to be teeming with them, but they have all but disappeared due to the increasing presence of dogs that eat their eggs. “It’s a sensitive subject here. People here are very fond of their dogs.”
After dessert, a bottle of vinete is opened: a cloudy sugarcane moonshine distilled by the locals and flavoured with cinnamon, cloves and vanilla. It tastes great, but after the third glass, a throbbing headache sets in. Carlos knows just the remedy: a night-time dip in the surf. He instructs me to put on as light clothing as possible. A short while later, as we stand in the surf in pitch darkness, I see why: luminescent algae cling to my T-shirt and I glow like a Christmas tree. Then the cloud cover parts above us, revealing the starry sky once more. Between the twinkling of the surf and the sky, the magic is complete.
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