El Arca Review – A Cheaper Alternative to Casa en el Agua
TL;DR
El Arca Tintipan Island is a cheaper, quieter alternative to Casa en el Agua in Colombia’s San Bernardo Archipelago. Get honest insights on costs, accommodations, food, and activities!
We have just spent time at El Arca Tintipan Island (formally known as Isla Roots) – an island hostel in the Archipelago of San Bernardo in Colombia.
In our honest review, you can find out whether it could be a cheaper alternative to Casa en el Agua for you – or not.
El Arca Tintipan Island
How to Get to El Arca
The easiest way to get to El Arca from Cartagena is by taking the direct fast boat by Tranqiteasy. They have one daily boat from Cartagena to El Arca and vice versa.
If you want to cut your time on the water short, you can take a boat from Rincón del Mar. First, you have to take a bus from Cartagena to San Onofre. From here, a taxi will take you to Rincón del Mar. As far as we know, there is no scheduled ferry service from here but we met travellers who went with a fisherman on his boat. All in all, we doubt that you can save money this way.
El Arca Rooms
We tried two different rooms at El Arca:
- Hammock dorm: Cheapest dorm, comes with lockers and sufficient power outlets.
- Regular dorm: No lockers, not enough outlets, no curtains, can get quite stuffy.
El Arca Food
You are not allowed to bring your own food on the island. There are three fixed meal times:
- Breakfast 8:00 am to 9:00 am
- Lunch 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
- Dinner 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm
If you want to eat, you have to order a couple of hours in advance. Once the food is ready, they will yell all over the island to ensure you get fed.
While the food is not cheap, we found the prices to be fair for such a remote location. You also can buy snacks.
There’s also a bar where you can buy drinks.
One serious point of criticism we have is that you could buy 500 ml of water maximum and it cost 6000 COP. At a place where you can’t drink the tap water, this adds up fast!
El Arca Activities
Honestly, the main activity at El Arca is to relax and do nothing but if you want to do something, here are our recommendations:
- Kayak – gives you the highest flexibility to explore Tintipan (you can kayak all around the island) and Casa en el Agua.
- Luminescent plankton – simply amazing.
- Snorkel tour – not worth it, mostly dead corals.
- Tour to Islote – More than 1200 inhabitants live in just under 100 buildings. This makes it the most densely populated island in the world.
- Tour to Tintipan or Mucura – El Arca does not have a sandy beach but you can find one on Tintian or Mucura.
El Arca Infrastructure
Bathrooms
You can only use the showers once per day from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm. The water is cold and the water pressure low but it’s ok for a short stay.
There were plenty of communal showers and toilets. Be aware that you have to flush the toilets manually.
Electricity
The power is on between 7:00 pm and 7:30 am.
Internet
There is WiFi when there is power. I would not rely on video call speed though. People with Claro SIM cards also had reception with their mobile data.
El Arca – Our Review
We really enjoyed our time at El Agua. Here’s why: We came to relax and do nothing – and this worked like a charm.
The island is charming and the turquoise Caribbean water is the cherry on top.
At the time of our stay, it was very quiet. There was only one other guest. If you want more action, head to Casa en el Agua instead.
The rooms were functional but we would have preferred a locker in the dorm – especially considering that there might be more guests. We also need a power outlet next to the bed and prefer curtains for some privacy.
Personally, we didn’t mind the limited times for showers and electricity at all.
We chose to have all three meals on the island which was enough food for us. On the other hand, we found the drinks to be very overpriced and limited ourselves to one drink per day.
As there were so few guests, we had enough space to relax and we always found a free sunbed without putting down a towel at dawn (we’re German in case you didn’t know).
The staff was nice but definitely did not go above and beyond.
El Arca or Casa en el Agua
We only went to Casa en el Agua for the day but here are the main differences we noticed:
El Arca price |
Casa en el Agua price |
| Much cheaper. | Much more expensive. |
El Arca vibe |
Casa en el Agua vibe |
| Very quiet and not very social. | Party hostel on the water. |
El Arca size |
Casa en el Agua size |
| The island is bigger with more places to retreat. | The island is tiny. |
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