Santa Marta, Colombia 11-13 September 2011

We left Cartagena on Sunday morning via a door to door shuttle service to Santa Marta. This was a very efficient and comfortable way to do this trip and not too expensive. The bus trip was about 4 hours and we didn't have the stress of finding our way to and from bus terminals in either city. The trip was very uneventful and we got to see a little of the scenery on the way. There were a lot of lakes, sea and lots of tropical vegetation. Not much else to report on that front.

When we got to Santa Marta we dropped off a couple of people and then we ended up going over the hill to drop off a few people in Taganga. This is a pretty little fishing village and we were happy that we got the opportunity to see this. After we dropped off the rest of the people there Tess and I were a little worried that the shuttle driver had forgotten about us, so we started purposefully talking really loudly so he would in fact not forget about us! We headed back to Santa Marta through the back-end, next thing we were worried about was the location of our next hostel, as the back of Santa Marta is like something out of Michell's Plain. Fortunately he was just taking another route and we arrived at the Dreamer Hostel to be pleasantly surprised.

The staff there were very welcoming and gave us a lot of good information. Santa Marta city is not particularly beautiful, but the surrounding areas are extremely beautiful with Parque Tayrona situated just a short drive away.

Our first task in Santa Marta was to venture out, check out the area and find the bus terminal. Armed with our ever improving, yet still extremely basic Spanish we headed for the bus terminal. Walking away we were very proud of our efforts as we went to all the major bus companies and managed to find our cost of bus tickets and departure times. This put us at ease knowing we had our exit strategy planned.

On the way home, we popped into the local shopping centre, which is supposed to be the biggest in Santa Marta.  We came to the conclsion that these people hardly know what a shopping centre is and its about the same size as the Riverside Centre in Rondebosch. It did have a very big Exito (like Tescos or Pick n Pay). We bought ourselves some dinner, some fruit and sandwich stuff for the beach trip the next day.

There were 2 options to explore Parque Nacional Tayrona and its amazing beaches: to go into the park and stay the night, seeing the beaches further into the park, or the option we went for, to do a day trip to Playa Concha. We headed off to go and find our way there. When the taxi dropped us off at Bastida we were surrounded by motorbike and 4x4 drivers wanteing to ferry us there. After some negotiation we decided to go with Primo and his clapped out series 1 Landy. The trip there is amazingly scenic as you head towards and into the park with a pretty basic dirt track the only way in and out. The door was held closed with a u-shaped metal bar, there was a hole in the floor next to the gear lever and we needed to stop on the way back for Primo to do some emergency repairs to an accelerator cable that came undone.

When we arrived at Playa Concha, we were greeted by the most stunning beach and we were just about the only people on it. We hired some chairs under an awning and settled in for the day. We then chilled and soaked in the sun, sounds and sights of the beach. The beach looks like an uninhabited island as all you can see is flat warm blue water, white sands and the surrounding mountains covered in green green vegetation.
Some highlights from the beach:

• We saw 2 Colombian ladies posing for each other in the water, out of the water, on the rocks, in what we can only summise was the beginning some sort of medelling portfolio (think Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition minus the photo crew). We not so sure they are going to get too far!
• Watching local fisherman ply their trade. They take the nets out a whole long way into the bay using a very simple boat and some oars then bring it back to the back and a whole bunch get involved dragging the net back in. The pickings were rather slim!
• Finding a crab and starfish in the sea right where we were swimming

All in all, this was the most relaxing day we have had on our trip so far. I did get a little too much sun and tess wanted to take pictures of me when I got home. I rufused point blank fearing these would get onto Facebook or into the blog. Trust me, I saved you guys from a horrific sight!










The next day in Santa Marta was much more chilled. We relaxed in the morning at the hostel pool and then headed out to the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino - Simon Bolivar Museum. This was pretty impressive, it is situated on a 36 acre property in Santa Marta. Simon Bolivar is a legend in these parts as he freed a whole lot of the South Amrican countires from Spanish rule. There were also some art exibitions  at the Museum, as well as the house where he spent his last days and passed away, which contained old artifacts, photos and memorabilia. Around the Museum are the botanical gardens, with loads of trees, birds, some fish in pools, iguanas and apparently some snakes. On a board at the entrance they recommend we stay away from the areas where the poisonous snakes are situated. No shit! 

After leaving the museum we headed to buy our bus tickets and then just chilled at the hostel by the pool, reading our books in hammocks and playing around on the internet waiting for our bus to leave at 8:30 in the evening.