Casa en el Agua

One of the things that Cartagena is most famous for, is the beach, but if you speak with the locals you will realise that the best ones are not near the city but outside. That's why we decided to take a boat 2 hours and half away from the city to a island in the middle of nowhere. The island we arrived is called Isla de San Bernardo, but the house we stayed in is called Casa en el Agua.

Casa en el Agua is a really interesting concept, as you can see in the picture is a house in the middle of the sea, and one of their main targets is that you stay completely disconnected from the city and enjoy the nature and the people as much as possible (yes, you will not find Wifi there).

The workers from the house live in a nearby island called Islote de Santa Cruz, which is considered one of the most densed populated pieces of land in the region. There is not many space and they do as many activities as you would do on a small town. From there, they commute to Casa en el Agua every day and they are responsible for the cleaning, cooking, tours, etc for the tourist. Also they love partying, so you will have a guaranteed party every single night.

Casa en el Agua is a place that is really conscious about nature, which means that from the toilets to your shower will be done in a really nature conservative way. I think if you are used to the city, it will be a huge challenge, but in the other hand it makes you realise how many things we have in the comodity of our houses that we don't value, and even further how many of those things can actually destroy the nature. So I think is a good experience for everybody that wants to be conscious about this.

The house receives guests every day from different parts of the world, so is a great opportunity for you to meet a lot of new people. If is not the case, then you will struggle since you have limited space where you can go. Again, like I mentioned before is a house in the middle of the sea.

The house organises activities every day, where you can do from snorkling, take a boat to another island, kayak or any other water sport that you can imagine. You can also chill, stay in the house, enjoy the piece of the sea, have a bath and see the sunset. In our case we did all this and a lot of activities.

One of the activities that we did was taking a boat in the middle of the night to something that looks like some sort of mangroves. In there, even though for some people might be scary, you can swim with a plankton that with your movement, generates a reaction that makes you glow in the dark. Suddenly what you will feel is that you look like a floating lamp in the middle of the sea, which was quite a unique experience to live. Sadly, I want it to take pictures of the experience but you need to have a special camera, neither my gopro or my reflex couldn't do the job that night. The glow is not something that can be appreciated from the boat, but only the people that are inside the water.

Also we went snorkling nearby an island called Isla Mucura. Me personally love diving and snorkling, so the experience was absolutely great, but at the same time I felt I little bit sad, that because of the tourism unconsciousness we are destroying the corals and the diversity inside the sea, which speaking with the locals, they have seen with their own eyes the direct effect on deteriorating the sea. And hey! from a touristic point of view is great that you are swimming in a crystal clear water looking to a lot fishes, squids, hedgehog etc but we have to be more conscious about this and help them preserve those places. At the end that's their home and once is destroyed, there is no going back.

Finally we spent our last day in Isla Mucura where the beach was absolutely fantastic. In our case was also great to stay on a white sand beach where we could walk and see something different. The people in the island are interested in the tourists of course, but at the same time they treat you incredibly well, making sure that you can relax and enjoy. So eating in front of the beach, having a sun bath and enjoying the water has no price, and is something that I would abslutely recommend.

In this experience I relaxed, met a lot of people, enjoyed the nature and in general learned a lot. Casa en el Agua makes sure that everybody in that house gets treated as a family member, which makes you share with everybody including the workers, allowing you to live things that are quite unique. A real experience in the caribbean.