After six days in the jungle, soggy and underfed we decided to stay somewhere nice (as a change from the usual cold shower and hammock or even more luxurious vinyl-clad bed category of accommodation). A friend that we made in Bogotá had mentioned a place called Tuchi in Palomino, which is unknown by foreign tourists and more frequented by Colombian tourists. It’s a shoreline with coconut palms and old broken wooden canoes located on the Caribbean ocean.
To get there we took a typical brightly painted local bus which was full because of a Colombian public holiday. Seb and I sat at the back of the bus where we were entertained by a family of about eight women who were on their way to visit a family beach farm. Together we filled the entire back of the bus! One of the ladies pulled a bottle of Aguadiente (an aniseed liquor similar to ouzo but better!) from her bag and generously insisted that we have shots with them. These women warmly embraced our (I’m sure) charming Spang-lish encouraging more and more conversation until we realised that two hours on the bus had passed very quickly and we had arrived at Palomino.
In the main street we asked several shopkeepers for directions to the Tuchi Hotel, all of which had never heard of such a place. We had assumed (number one backpacker rule: never assume!) that we could get off the bus and jump in a taxi which would take us to the hotel. All the taxis in this area were motorbikes and couldn’t take a passenger with luggage. The bigger problem was that the motorbike taxi driver had also never heard of Tuchi Hotel!
We were then approached by a suspiciously well dressed Latino man in his late 50’s who offered to help us by taking us to his friends backpacker-hammock style place. Worried that his good gestures would lead us down the garden path so to speak, we declined and agreed to take a mud map from him and find the place ourselves. (Life rule number one; Trust no bastard!). In hindsight he was simply being generous and helpful much like many other Colombians we had already come across on our travels so far.
With 22 kilos each on our backs and 35 degree humid heat without a breath of wind we headed down ¨the garden path…¨ which after a few kilometres took us past a rubbish tip, and onto a deserted white sandy beach. Another few kilometres down a sandy beach we came across the Tuchi himself! The owner of the hotel that thankfully did exist is named Tuchi!
He made us feel very welcome and shared with us over the few days a collection of stories about his wife and children and how he came to develop the very unique and rustic two story bungalows.
I especially enjoyed the characteristic out door bathroom/shower. All of our meals were from a set menu and were prepared traditionally including fish and prawns and salad.
The bungalows were set back from the beach and in a loose semi circle form around a massive tree with strong branches. From the branches hung old black iron candelabras which provided just enough light at night to make underneath the tree a social chill out area. There was a large decked area with coloured bean bags for you to sip a cocktail while listening to Café del Mar. This was really really funky! We have some plans of our own to create this in our own back yard…When we have one…
