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Published: April 3rd 2009
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Taganga
View from the hills I would walk on most days. Wow - finding words to describe the last couple of weeks is hard. Taganga is a place that I found very easy to get stuck in.
I call Taganga a holiday within a holiday because when you are travelling life can sometimes be hard. You are constantly on the move, going to new places, carrying all of your worldy possessions on your back, trying to communicate in a foreign language, make decisions and make them quickly and arriving in a new place on a regular basis where you donĀ“t know a single soul. Taganga is a place where the living is easy for a traveller. Anything you think you could possibly want you can get very easily.
There are restaurants gallore, fruit juice stalls everywhere, lots of dive schools, bars, walks in the mountains, people selling you wonderful woven jewellery and clothes etc on the beach and beer and rum in as much quantities as you want. I do not want to gve the impression however that it is a really commercial place. Although this sleepy little fishing village has been developed somewhat to suit the traveller in Colombia it still has a really rustic and undeveloped feel to
Hammock Time
Lots of hammock time!! it. OK, I have seen better beaches in my life (but remember I live in Australia), I have stayed in better hostels (mine had a tin roof that would sound like it was going to come off everynight as you get this absolutley crazy carribean gale force wind everynight from sunset at about 6pm through to sun rise) but it is a place that has this thing that just draws you in and makes it very difficult to leave.
I arrived straight from a few quiet days in Cartagena and took a 4 hour bus through Barranquilla (where their version of the Rio festival was happening) and instantly met up with this young scottish guy. We hung out for about 3 days going on crazy walks in the mountains and having beers on te beach while the sun sets and eating amazing meals which consist of a soup, a juice, a whole fish with rice, beans, salad and plantains all for less that Aus$3. Amazing!
They have some pretty great parties here too which go on until all hours of the morning so of course we attended a few of those. Following a few days of this I
Fruit Juice
Everyday you can drink another amazing juice filled with which ever tropical fruit you want to try on that day. All for less than $1.20 took myself off to a national park nearby called Tyrona National Park. It is beautiful and there really are some amazing beaches here. I slept in a hammock for 4 days and walked in the jungle and swam in the ocean everyday. Met a really nice guy from Aus and a lovey guy from Bogota who was kind enough to show me around his part of town on my last night in Colombia. Tyrona is a great place to get away from the rest of the world and really be with nature. As my friend from Bogota aptly described Tyrona and Taganga, Tyrona is a place to feed the spirit and the mind and Taganga is a place to feed the needs of the flesh! Quite apt.
I really thought I was going to stay in this national park for maybe a couple of weeks but unfortunately on my first night someone (we think a backpacker) tried to steal my bag. Luckily the bag I had under my hammock only had clothes in (my valuables were locked away) so I found my bag dumped on the beach the next morning with all of my possessions intact but a guy
Hills Hills Everywhere
The whole area is surrounded by these hills which are very good fun to go walking in. My body is nicely covered in scratches and bruises!! nearby was not so lucky and his camera and sunglasses were gone. I guess it was not a big deal but knowing that someone had been so close to me while I was sleeping made it a bit difficult to sleep properly after that as there were always noises coming from the bushes (lots of wildlife here) and I kept thinking they were coming back to get me! Apart from that, the mosquitos developed a real love of my blood. I have never been bitten by so many mosquitos. One night I slept with my head up against my mosquito net and the next morning woke up to what I thought was a recurrence of teenage acne all over my forehead. Basically the little buggars had bitten me though every hole possible.
Apart from all of that though Tyrona is a great place. I was maybe unlucky in the respect of the robbery and mosquitos but it is a place I would definitely go back to and I met some really amazing people I will definitely stay in touch with.
After that I was back in Taganga for about another week (it is so so so easy to
Playa Grande
The next beach around which sells fish, cervezas and fruit juices. get stuck there) and then finally managed to pull myself away to go back to Cartagena to pick up a bag of warm clothes I had left there (by this point my whole possessions are weighing about 25 kilos which is a lot to be carrying on your back) before I started the most amazing journey across Colombia to do the home run on the was to Bogota for my flight out of South America.
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