Santa Marta is a quaint town with beautiful churches, plazas, and colonial architecture. Though it is no where near as clean and developed as Cartagena, it had a lot of charm. There is not too much to see in Santa Marta itself, but it is a great place to stay for all the day trips nearby and overnight hammock trips.
The hostel I stayed at was full of happy ad friendly travellers. It was owned by two American guys, so there was a strong emphasis on drinking and fun. People could really get stuck in that town because of the hostel–in fact most of the staff had been travellers who just stayed to work the bar and had been there for months now.
I spent my first day exploring Santa Marta and hanging out, really doing not a whole lot. The second day, one of the staff from the hostel organized a tour for whoever wanted to join to see some waterfalls and hike a bit, then go to a surf competition at a beach called Casa Grande. There were about 10 of us, and we had a difficult time trying to all squeeze on the bus during Semana Santa (Easter Week). We got there though, and were soon walking through beautiful trails and river beds. At the waterfall, there are pools of water all the way up, about every 40 feet where you can swim and relax on the rocks. The smaller waterfalls flow into each pool. It was a really neat place; even with quite a few people there for Easter it was beautiful. I’d love to be able to go back when it’s empty…it was so serene.
The surf competition was not too exciting as the waves weren’t big enough to hold much of an event that day. But we hung out on the beach and watched some of the contestants go out and play on the waves; they were all super talented and some of them had to be under 15.
The next morning, a couple of us went out to Tayrona Park, a National Park about a 40 minute drive from Santa Marta. After walking through the park for an hour and a half or two hours, you reach Cabo San Juan. It was such a beautiful walk through the jungle and forest, and everywhere on the walk you are just minutes from some of the most beautiful white sandy bays. As you come out to Cabo, there are two large bays, both blocked by a coral reef just off shore. The bays are multiple colours of turquoise with white sand with large boulders dotted about. In between the bays is a big hut with hammocks strung in a circle connected to the center pole. You rent out a hammock for the night and can see both of the bays from up there. If you walk further along, you just find more and more white sandy beaches. It was a bit busy due to Easter, so we kept walking to the nudist beach, where it was much quieter. The nasty naked men around didn’t even take away from the beauty of the park–that’s saying something.
The next day was spent on the beach until the boat to Tagana, a fishing village about 7 km from Santa Marta. The boat was a nice way to come back from the park quickly, but it was definitely a bit rocky, and it was hard to really trust that the boatmen knew what they were doing. Everyone survived though, haha. Taganga is another place where a lot of people stay, but it was insanely busy with a pretty crap beach. It did not look like a nice place to hang out really.
The next day a bunch of us left for Cartagena. The bus was less than pleasant–I’m not sure if it was car sickness, a hangover, or the parasite I had swimming around in my stomach, but I felt like just shit. I had to ask the bus to pull over after puking a little in my mouth–lovely. Thankfully, we went to the pharmacy and found some drugs for me, and two days later I was feeling much better for the first time since Bolivia really. The parasite can stay with you for years, so I’m glad that I finally went in for some drugs. Hopefully I will keep it away.
We spent the next day out at the mud volcano just outside Cartagena. It was so
weird, you just float in the mud. It is 2500 meters deep of just mud. When you get in some gives you an oddly enjoyable body massage in the mud, then you just hang out like you would in a hot tub, looking like some mud monsters from a scary movie. After all that, you go down to the lake to rinse off, and women literally just take your swim suit off to give you a good rinse. It was an interesting experience. We spent the rest of the day at the beach walking around and watching the windsurfers.
