Playa Blanca is a popular short trip from Cartegena. The beaches in Cartegena are not very nice, or clean, so people travel here by bus or boat for its promised crystal clear turquoise water and a relaxed atmosphere. Since I had some free time, I decided to stay a night in Playa Blanca.
I expected a very relaxed and disconnected couple of days. I knew there was minimal services and a rustic way of life at this beach - there are no normal fresh water showers and internet does not exist there. But I met some great people, and there was more on the peninsula than I expected.
It was a nice beach, but it is not very wide.
Restaurants and cabins stretch down the beach for a couple of miles, one right after another. It was more crowded with buildings than I imagined.
There are a lot of locals hawking hats, massages, jewlery and fruit. But later in the afternoon, after all the day trips leave, it's easy to be left alone. When the beach clears out, it's super peaceful.
Accommodations were rustic, as expected. After checking out multiple places, a group of us decided to stay at a place on the beach we felt had the most infrastructure, Parador. There were proper beds and it was as clean as you could imagine for being right on the beach. The rooms were made of plywood walls and a thatch roof. Booking in Playa Blanca is best done as you arrive - you're able to negotiate and look at the places in person. I checked out places online prior and some were not as pictured (other places we checked out had dirty mattresses piled into large rooms, or stuffed into small rooms), and much pricer than going rates (I saw one place online for $30/night and it was 25 pesos when we talked to them - which is less than half). A lot of people rent hammocks to sleep in outside as a cheap option (like $8 USD).
On the bus to the beach, I befriended a great crew of guys - four Americans and one Turkish. It turns out I had met one guy in Medillian (after my friends and I made a bunch of noise coming home one night from a bar crawl and waking him up. Whoops.) and another guy and I had friends in common from Miami. With these guys, my relaxing beach trip quickly turned out to be a lot more fun!
We spent the day swimming in the clear water, eating fresh fish and drinking mojitos. We rented a banana boat and were thrown into the water several times.
We watched an amazing sunset, danced merengue and salsa on the beach, and went for a night swim in phytoplankton which was so freaking cool! They light up when you move and I kept making "snow angles" and wooshing my hands like a wizard.
The second day was a lazy beach day- staring at the water and wondering how it can be so pretty and blue. It was a nice break from the city, but I was pleased to get back to Cartegena and have a proper shower!
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