As of now I am a PADI certified advanced open water diver! The past week I´ve been hanging out in this touristic fishers village called Taganga. I´ve also spent the night in a tent in Tayrona national park, a 45 minute boatride from here.
End of Day 19
I signed up for BBQ at the hostel. It turned out to be a big plate of food including steak, chicken, sausage and vegetables. Before I went to the BBQ I signed up for an advanced open water diving course with Aquantis.I heard from people at my hostel it happened to be one of the best dive centers around. There´s a lot of competition here in Taganga, apparently the little town counts twelve diving schools now. Some of those diving schools are not the greatest because they are working with old gear or bad instructors.
Aquantis is being run by Belgian guy and his Colombian wife. I had a little chat with the Colombian woman, who could speak a bit of Dutch thanks to her husband. She told me I could start to course tuesday, as she was already booked up for monday.
That night after the BBQ we all had drinks in the hostel bar. Santiago, the owner of the hostel was doing 3 for 10,000 rum and cokes which were pretty good. Later that night I went out to the beach with some of the people from the hostel. A British guy went for a swim but stepped in a poisonous sea animal. Within minutes his foot started to swell up and he could barely walk. I carried him on my back to the 24 hour pharmacy about 2 blocks away. The woman at the pharmacy gave him some stuff to deflame the wound. Afterwards we walked through the streets. A bum came up to us and asked what was wrong. He looked at the foot of the British guy and knew exactly what was needed to do.. Someone had to pee on his foot. Thankfully the bum had to pee, so he told the British guy to come along and he went to pee on his foot.
Needless to say we were laughing our asses off.. But: it worked. The British guy noticed the pain was fading away. Afterwards the bum grabbed a coconut from the street, broke it in two and removed some of the insides with his mouth. He then grabbed a piece of the coconut and wrapped it around the wound. He said it would heal in a few hours. With this bizar thing we ended the night and walked back to the hostel.
Day 20
Relaxing day. I woke up around 10 am. Changed into a aircon room as even at night it gets really hot. The rest of the day I sat by the swimming pool of the hostel and read my diving theory for my advanced course I was going to do the next day. The specialities I chose for the course included a deep dive, a night dive, a navigation dive, a buoyancy peek performance dive and a photography dive. I had to go through all the chapters and learn about all these specific dives.
That night it turned out to be a quiet night, good for me as I had at the diving center around 8 in the morning the next day.
Day 21
Got up early, grabbed my towel and my camera and headed off to the diving center. The diving center is about 2 blocks from the hostel so I was there quick. Once there I met up with my diving instructor, Carlos, who was going to assist me with my dives.
After a few instructions we left for the boat which was right on the beach, about 1 block away from the diveshop. We hopped onto the small boat and off we were to the first dive site.
The first dive was a deep dive. We went down to 30 meters depth. There we did some cool tricks, like breaking an egg under water and see what pressure does to it down there. Basicly the egg kept its original shape. I could play with the yellow insides of the egg like a pingpong ball without the egg losing its shape.
We also did a mathmatical test to see what kind of effects the depth has on your body. It turned out it took me about 3 seconds longer down there to the test than doing it on the surface. Colours, especially red are completely off at 30 meters. My instructor asked me what kind of fruit he had in his hand, it seemded like a brown, dark fruit.. perhaps a peach. It turned out to be a tomato. I wasn´t able to tell while down there.
After the first dive we went to a little deserted beach nearby. There we had lunch and waited for the nitrogen to get out of our bodies. After lunch we went over to another dive site where I did my second dive: peak buoyancy performance. This basicly means trying to be as weightless as possible underwater. After the second dive we went back to Taganga. I had a few hours to relax, but that night I was doing my third dive: the night dive.
I slept in one of the hammocks for a few hours at the hostel, had some food and went back to the diving center. Back in the boat we cruised for about 5 minutes. There we lighted our torches and went down to the bottom. At the bottom I had to do a few navigational tests with a compass. Like swimming into one direction and trying to find my way back in the dark. It all went fine. Afterwards I joined the rest of the group and we dove for about 45 minutes. Sealife was relatively quiet, but it´s always a cool experience to dive in the dark.
Once back we were welcomed with hot chocolate and buttered bread. I had a shower and went back to the hostel. I sat down at the hostel bar and ate a hamburger. I had a few drinks with a Peruvian girl who runs the hostelbar. We went to a discobar for a few more drinks later on that night.
Day 22
Got up late as I was diving around 1pm. I had some breakfast and went over to the diving center. From there we got back to the boat to another dive site. This 4th dive I was going to a navigation dive. I had to swim through a square underwater and do some navigation tests like swimming in a perfect square etc.
After lunch we went over the last dive site for my photography dive. It turned out the owner of the dive center had forgottten to give a white balance chart to set the white balance under water. Carlos, my instructor, didn´t know what to do and finally decided to just go and shoot some photos down there.
Afterwards we rreturned back to the dive shop. I thought I was done doing my course as I had done all five dives. I did tell the Colombian woman, the owner, that we didn´t have the white balance chart. She immediately apologized and explained how in the morning she had a problem with two Dutch customers. (Basically they wanted to dive, but the Dutch guy had had a collapsed lung before. Once she told him he was not allowed to dive, they got angry and finally they were in tears). Because of that situation she forgot about my chart. She told me she wanted to make it up to me and gave me 2 more dives in exchange for a beer. Obviously I agreed immediately.
That night I ate fish at the hostel. The fish was really nice and tasted really good. Unfortunately the fish turned out to be bad though, as I woke around 4 am with a massive stomach ache and diarrea. It turned out the other people in the hostel had the same problem so it had to be the fish.
Day 23
I woke up with massive stomach aches. I used some medicine against the diarrea and hoped I could still dive that afternoon. Thankfully once in the water I started to feel better. The first dive happened to be fun dive. We saw loads of sealife including a barracuda and two seahorses.
The second dive was my photography dive, this time WITH the white balance chart. I took quite a few photos down there, which was really nice – yet quite difficult as you can´t move as quickly as you can above water. Besides you have to try to keep the camera as still as possible which is quite a hassle down there.
After the dive we went back to the diving center where I did a test about the stuff I had been studying. My instructor reviewed my answeres. After all this, I was finally done and an official PADI certified advanced open water diver. I told the Colombian woman whether she was ready to collect her free beer. She asked me whether I was hungry, which I was. We decided to have some dinner at Casa de Felipe, a hostel run by a French guy. The restaurant of the hostel is run by a Dutch chef and apparently he did the best Argentinian steaks in town.
We had food and talked about the competition of the numerous diving centers here in Taganga. She also told me how she met her Belgian husband and how she started the diving center. Apparently the last few years tourism has really taken off here in Colombia and they´re making good money now around here. Afterwards we went to pay for dinner. I wanted to pay for my meal, but the Colombian woman already did for me. All I was allowed to pay, was the beer she had, which was extremely kind. She thanked me for the nice conversation and I went back to the hostel.
Back at the hostel I had few drinks. Later on I went to the discobar with the Peruvian bargirl again, yet I felt quite tired. I didn´t stay too long and went to bed not much later.
Day 24
Got up early, only had a few hours of sleep. Went to the dive center to pay for my course, received my certificate, checked out of my hostel, packed my daybag and walked to the beach. All within 90 minutes, as me and 3 of my American roommates were catching a boat to Tayrona national park. A beautiful park about 45 minutes away by boat.
The choppy boat ride was far from relaxing, it felt more like a bit rollercoaster. Once we arrived we rented a tent at the camping right next to the beach. The beach looked amazing and is very scenic.
I slept a while on the beach until it started to rain. We had shower and had dinner at the camping restaurant. I had to borrow money offf one of the American girls, as the ATM in Taganga didn´t work.
After dinner we sat down and had a few drinks. Around 1am we all went back to our tents to sleep.
Day 25
We woke up fairly early, as the sun was shining on top of our tents. Yet I did sleep relatively well. We woke up, brushed teeths etc. and went to sit on the beach. By 9am it was already boiling hot. You can see the sweat just dripping off your body while you lay down. Insane heat. We decided to leave this paradisic beach again though, as there´s not much else than the beach which gets really boring after a day or two.
We grabbed the boat back to Taganga and checked in to our hostel. Tonight I am planning to have a little party night, as it happens to be saturday night.
Monday I am planning to go on a 5 day hiking trek to Cuidad Perdida (Lost City). A city somewhere in the jungle which can only be reached on foot.
Check back soon to read everything about my trek to Cuidad Perdida!
Jul 25th 2010 – Jul 31st 2010
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