Yes, there's a boutique hotel in Bocachica, and you're reading its website. We're 11 rooms and a beach club on the southern shore of Tierra Bomba, facing the open sea, about 25 minutes by boat from Cartagena. Small enough that the whole place sleeps 30 people. Big enough that there's a kitchen worth crossing water for.
This page is the honest version: how you get here, what a night costs, what the village is actually like, and the things we'd rather you knew before you book than discover on arrival.
Where we are, and why there's no road
We're in Bocachica, on the island of Tierra Bomba, on the southern shore facing the open ocean. There's no bridge to the island and no car ferry, so you can't drive here. The two ways in are a boat ride or, if you're feeling flush, a five minute helicopter ride with our friends at Galavanta.
Most people take our boat. It leaves Cartagena from the Muelle de la Bodeguita at 10am, 11:30am and 5pm, and comes back from us at 4pm and 5:30pm. The crossing is usually smooth and much calmer than the run out to the Rosario Islands, though in windy weather the sea gets choppy. Getting on and off a boat requires a bit of agility, and if the tide is very high or the sea is unusually rough we dock in the village instead, about a mile away, and you ride pillion on a motorbike taxi from there. People tend to remember that part fondly.
From the airport, door to door is about an hour. On the way out, leave us three hours before your flight departs. We can arrange transfers both ways if you ask.
The rooms
We have 11 rooms, and up to 30 people can sleep on the property. Room rates are per room, based on two people sharing unless stated otherwise, and include breakfast plus one day's access to the beach club and facilities per person, per night: pool, volleyball, your sun-lounger and towel service.
Two examples, so you can see the shape of it. MANZANA has a private pool and a jacuzzi. NISPERO has the jacuzzi but no private pool. Both include breakfast.
A few numbers that matter before you book:
- Resort fee: $20 USD per night. City hotels plug into public utilities. We don't have that option out here, so we make our own.
- Full board: $90 USD per person per night, covering all food and soft drinks. There's no all-inclusive bar. This is not Cancun.
- Tax: foreign residents pay no tax on hotel accommodation. For Colombian residents, IVA is already included.
- Check-in and check-out: check-in from 3pm, check-out by 11am.
- Cancellation: 50% refunded if you cancel more than 30 days before check-in. Inside 30 days the deposit is neither refundable nor transferable.
What's on the plate
The kitchen is the reason a lot of people stay two nights instead of one. It was built by Chef Silvestre Saiz Cortazar, born and trained in Ibiza and raised in the kitchens of Bogotá, and Pedro Mosqueda now runs it as Executive Chef. We buy conscientiously, mostly local things, and we only serve meat that's been sustainably raised and ethically treated. If you're vegetarian, vegan, lactose or gluten intolerant, you'll eat well rather than eat around the menu.
We were also the first beach club in Cartagena to put together a wine list, and yes, we sell rosé by the magnum. Cocktails are made with fresh juice. The beach club is open to day visitors from 11am to 6pm, so if you're staying the night, the quiet hours after that are yours.
Bocachica village
Bocachica is a village of no running water and no paved roads, and it's a ten out of ten for soul. Go in. It will rearrange your idea of what an island near Cartagena is. What it is not is a strip of chic bars and restaurants, so don't arrive expecting one and be disappointed at the village for not being a postcard. This is island life as the people who live here live it.
The other thing worth walking to is the Bocachica fort, the old Spanish defence at the mouth of the bay. The channel here is why the whole village exists: it's the narrow entrance the Spanish spent centuries fortifying.
The bits we'd rather say out loud
Our beach has volcanic sand. It isn't the white sand of the Rosario Islands, but it's natural, clean, and it opens onto a wide ocean rather than a lagoon. You can't really snorkel here: the water leads out to open sea and our house reef sits at 6 metres, so a one hour scuba dive is the better use of your morning.
There's no mobile signal on the island. WhatsApp is how everyone reaches us, including you. And we're honest about access: we're at the end of a boat ride and a 200 metre sandy track, and we're not wheelchair accessible. The hotel wasn't built with accessibility in mind, and we're sorry about that rather than relaxed about it.
Well-behaved children are welcome during the week. Saturdays, Sundays and holidays are for the over-12s, so everyone, parents included, gets a day off.
If a week out here starts to feel like a lot of horizon, guests staying longer are welcome to spend a night at our sister property, Townhouse, in the middle of Cartagena's Walled City. Twenty-five minutes each way. You can come and go.
See you on the boat.