Community Fish Grab (Taganga, Colombia)

Two nights ago I witnessed something new on this trip. We are staying in a small fishing village/beach town on the Caribbean coast. We were sitting on the beach at night, having a few beers and shooting the shit. Along comes some men and a gigantic fishing net, I mean gigantic! Eventually, about 8 men start reeling in this net that has been strategically placed into the ocean by a boat, and slowly a crowd starts building around them. As the net came closer and closer to the sand, all you could see were these medium sized silver fish flipping out, squirming, trying to escape. The community of Taganga all came about and some started to go into the water before the net had fully come inland, to start grabbing at whatever fish they could. There were couples tag teaming, one on the beach and one in the water, collecting the jumping, helpless sea creatures. One girl was stuffing her bra, a man was filling a 3 liter plastic bottle that he'd cut the top off of, another was just throwing them from the sea onto the sand to let them die as he ran back for more. There must have been at least 2000 fish there and at least 100 community folk all grabbing at the fish. One man ran past us as we sat on the beach and grabbed our small plastic shopping bag, he came back later with two filled bags! It was crazy! He explained to us that they do this about every two weeks, it's a community service for the townspeople. What a spectacle!

Mike goes home today. Boo. We've been with Emilie and Melissa know for about five days, and I'll continue on with them. It's so nice to be surrounded by friends I know so well. At the same time, I'll admit, I miss traveling solo sometimes, it just been an adjustment is all.