Hola from Atacames, a Pacific coastal tropical town of 10,000 residents with a few tourists included. My hotel is a pleasantly gated place named
Club del Sol, with access to the beach and Pacific waters directly behind…where the water temperature is the same as the air temperature and my shower…all 78 degrees F. It’s overcast so the water color changes from grey to slate green as the sun makes attempts to break through.
I arrived here on a full A-320 Airbus 25 minute flight from Quito landing at Esmeraldas, which is the closest coastal airport to Columbia and right out of a scene from “Miami Vice”. I thought about taking some photos, but figured some of these people probably were “wanted” and wouldn’t appreciate further notoriety.
I only mention this airport because of the way luggage is retrieved from the plane: They pile it all on to a flatbed wagon, haul it into a room smaller than my living room, then start shouting in Spanish,
“which one is yours” to over 100 people at a time. Needless to say, I was one of the last to retrieve mine, and I will never check a bag through again anywhere. But, at least I had a driver waiting for me, so the rest was pretty smooth.
The beach behind my hotel is flat and sandy. There are small boats and guides waiting in the morning, wanting to take me to see some sites…they speak in Spanish and show me a laminated menu of what to expect to see on the 90 minute $15 tour…whales
(ballenas), the
“casa blanca” hotel on the cliff, some birds…but the part that catches my eye is the part that says
“Playa Nudistas” (Nudist Beach”), where my guide
“Jorge” points out (with a grin on his face) that these people on his menu are wearing nothing except a volley ball in one guy's hands.
Now I’m thinking that this has possibilities…it reminds me of a time when as a kid I would pedal my bicycle down to Kepler’s Bookstore in Menlo Park and sneak peeks at the
“Sunshine and Health” magazine that was over in the “adults section” of the store…with people in the pictures like the one
“Jorge” was showing me…full frontal nudity of people standing by some volley ball net…at a time when it looked like bikini wax and safety razors had yet to be invented!
Anyway, I looked at the boats and the calmness of the water…the
barcos could have been named the
“SS-S.O.S.“, the
“SS-OSHA, Who Dat?”, or the
“SS- Da Propeller Just Cut My Leg Off Mo Fo”. Well, after contemplating the possibilities of going 90 minutes into unknown waters without a bathroom (
excusasdo) with my new best friend
"Jorge" I told him possibly
manana.
Later, as a group of survivors were offloaded from the
“SS-Thank God We Made It Back Alive”, I asked one of them if they had seen any whales or
“nudistas”… “no” was his only reply.
Malecon means “sea wall” most of the time…like in Habana, but here it means a walk along the
playa next to a short strip of small hotels, thatched roof hut bars and a few night clubs.
As elsewhere on my trip this place seems relatively safe…it’s a tourist zone and an economic necessity. Three wheeled moto-tricycles cost 50 centavos for the short ride back and forth from my hotel to the
Malecon.
The
Hotel Club del Sol has a great looking pool with
cabana bar and open air restaurant. Yesterday the pool was closed for “maintenance”…a little murky looking from chlorine and other chemicals. This morning I stuck my feet into it briefly, and now as I write this I notice my athletes foot has been cured.
I like being at sea level…it’s warmer than the mountains. Saturday I fly back to Quito, then catch a flight Monday to Lima.
Here’s to sunshine and health.
Saludos.
