Islas Trip

Location: Islas del Rosario, off of Cartagena, Colombia.
Rundown: Had a celebratory trip to a beach house in the islands with friends.


Our good friend Steven proposed to our other friend Christina. It was perfect timing! A group of us took a trip out the islands to a beach house to celebrate! The beach house was stuck on a lagoon in one of the islands and came complete with resident peacock!



We pulled no punches coming to the islands. Our lancha was loaded down with food, spirits, music, guitars...everything you need for a sweet long weekend on a tropical island!



Fishermen in dugout canoes would paddle up to the docks to show off their catch. We'd haggle out a good price for fresh lobster! Yum!





Our dock jutted out into the salty lagoon that connected to the sea.



We made lots of food and ate like tigers!





Our little bungalow was equiped with a slide into the water that we used liberally, although not always modestly... We had a real good time!





After a few bottles of rum slides seem like a really good idea. No loss of limb was incurred.



Our resident boatman took us to the hidden hangout on the island: a sandbar where boaters and islanders gather with plastic chairs in the water and tents overhead buried into the sand and sip cold aguardiente to escape the heat!





People congregated around rough-hewn tables in the shade of the mangrooves. It was fun to have found such a sweet little quiet spot.



We went by boat to a secluded beach and spent the day swimming, sunning, sipping, and snoozing until the sun started to get low in the sky and we piled back into the little lancha and zoomed back to our bungalow.





It's rough work being a beach bum, so sometimes one has to take some time off and relax. Wake me up before high tide...





Made it back after a zoomy boat ride in from the sea, through the mangroove passages to the lagoon and to our bungalow!



And then BANG, the end of the year! Coming soon: the new digs!

Spinning Fire

Location: La Boquilla, north of Cartagena, Colombia.
Rundown: Spent a night on the beach in Boquilla with the boys spinning fire.


As we saw the end of the year coming quickly, Nick, Austin and I decided we should do one more boys night and set our sites on La Boquilla and its long stretch of sandy beach north of Cartagena. We brought sushi from our favorite place in Centro, swam in the sea and practiced with unlit poi before the real show. We decided that we'd look tougher if we had some mean lookin' war paint.




Poi are weighted balls on the end of a chain that you spin around you. The poi we use are Kevlar. They're dipped in kerosine and lit.



The trick is to make it look neat without whackin' yourself (or anyone else) with the flaming poi. They make for an amazing spectacle at night.



The poi roar when they're lit and spinning through the air. It's so loud when you're spinning and inside the sphere of flame that you can't hear much of the people outside.



We spun on the beach under the moon. We figured that if one of us caught on fire the other two could extinghuish him in the sea! No major burns. No hair lost.



Good clean fun.