Cartagena to Santa Marta

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After our stay in Cartagena next up was Santa Marta in on the Caribbean coast. There were a few reasons for us to decide to come here. First was the tour to Ciudad Perdida (the lost city) which is in the middle of nowhere in deep jungle, like the name suggests. Built between the 11th and 14th century and then the people wiped out in the 16th century when the Spanish arrived. The trip takes a total of 7 days to hike there and back. After looking into it we decided to leave it as the pictures we looked at didn’t look brilliant and the cost of 115 pounds each was a bit pricey, it used to be 75, which we would have done.

Our second reason was to do some more diving. We decided to move on to Tatanga a small fishing village 15 mins up the road. The diving was nice and cheap 13 pound per dive and we did 8 dives each. The diving was well worth the money, we dove with Poseidon Adventures who were very professional, good equipment and nice people and took us to several good dive sites: We got to see loads of Moray eels swimming about which is a first for us as they are usually hiding in there holes, they looked very graceful. The best of all was an Octopus, the first we have even seen and one of the many things we have always wanted to see and something to cross of the list. A few of the dive sites are also known for there sea horses, unfortunately we didn’t see any so will have to keep waiting. We got to dive another wreck which I like doing and we got to swim inside the ship and explore, that was brilliant, it got a bit tight at times but that just added to the fun. Shell was a bit nervy as gets a bit claustrophobic, but she did very well and was glad she did it.

Tatanga was a lot nicer than Santa Marta, as there are better places to stay and the food is a lot better. Fortunately we only spent one night in Santa Marta and a week in Tatanga. The hostel we stayed at Case de Felipe was very nice and chilled out and we got to meet some nice people. I got to watch Utd v Bolton with a few other utd fans and other footie fans so had a good laugh and a bit of banter! I am usually the only person in the bar, so it made a nice change! We got talking to Mikey a guy from Scunthorpe who lives over there with his Colombian wife and daughter. He lives close by selling Jewellery which Michelle was happy about and also plays the guitar. Whilst we were there he did a show with a fit Dutch girl playing flute and singing and a guy from Ireland on the Mandolin. They only met a few weeks ago and it was fantastic.

Our time in Tatanga would be up at 7am for the diving and then back in the afternoon chilling in a hammock reading a book or catching some Zzzz! Not a bad life!

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Photos

Casa De Felipe
The view from the hostel in Taganga.