If I were an animal...

Oct 19 – Apartado – Colombia

If I could be an animal I would be a dolphin. People that know me already know that. I love their freedom, their agility, beauty and they’re super smart on top of it all. I also love the water, and the ocean even more. It is a good thing I grew up inland or I would have never studied as much as I did. I would just spend my days on the beach, with a surf board or other similar sport.

This weekend I went to a scuba diving course and I found out that I can fly in the water. What a wonderful sensation! To be suspended in the water, “flying” effortlessly over beautiful corals, among beautiful fish, turtles, rays; traveling in between huge beautiful big walls; just gorgeous. The sensation is amazing and I experimented as much as possible: going fast, slow, upside down, rolling around. It is just so much freedom! More than that was the peace you feel down there. Everything is so calm and silent, no noisy cars or people, just the sound of the bubbles my regulator makes every time I breathe while the fish swim calmly by. Even when I saw the shark it was peaceful (although I was a bit scared of it). He really didn’t have the slightest interest in us and swam away.

Capurgana is a little village on the boarder with Panama, only accessible by boat or plane, with lovely beaches and absolutely no cars. You can feel the energy change as soon as you walk out of the boat, into the village. People are just so much more relaxed and friendly. No cars zooming by, just the traffic of people walking around calmly on the cobble stone streets and the sounds of the waves gently crashing on the shore. That was before the party started, of course…

I got a room, dirt cheap, with an ocean view and a balcony with a hammock. There was a festival going on during the weekend, “El festival de la sigua” like a mini mini Carnaval I would say, or just an excuse to party all day and all night long and drink a lot. So, at 5:30am of the first day of festivities, the band (2 drummers, one flute and one sax., or something like one) was going around the streets and the people following it. They were quite good! I went to the balcony with my wrinkled face and my mop-style hair (typical “I just got out of the bed” face) to watch them go by. My friend Johanna also came out in a less jolly mood: “if they do this every day I’ll kill them”. Isabel just rolled over in bed, and with the wisdom of the locals informed: “they will do this every day”. Turns out that they didn’t need to do it everyday because the party never stopped (except for the wonderful moments when the electricity was off, but of course somebody made sure everybody stayed awake with those fireworks that make a huge noise, which I hate, and that dogs tend to hate even more). There was loud music just about all day and all night long.

But I was away from all that by going into the sea, down where I can hear the bubbles. I saw just about everything you can find on a warm Caribbean ocean (ok, that is exaggerating a bit, but I saw a lot of stuff): a shark (called nurse shark, how appropriate is that?), a turtle, rays, lots of colorful fish, a lobster, and on the last day, which was my birthday, they came… dolphins! 12 of them, soooo cute. It was the best birthday preset. We saw them from the boat, on the way to a dive site. I jumped in the water to try to get closer, but they were not interested in getting any closer. I did hear them under the water though. It was just great!

My birthday was great by the way. Johanna kept me awake the night before until midnight so I could hear Stevie wonder singing “happy birthday”, kindly provided by the bar below. I am so blessed to find nice people everywhere I go. The night of my birthday my new diving friends got me a cake, balloons and all that jazz. Too bad the electricity was gone and I couldn’t dance as much as I wanted, but well, nothing is perfect. I can’t complain: I rebalanced my mood, recharged my energy and found a new passion (diving). Life is great.