Stop 29: Taganga (Chillaxing in the Caribbean)

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We left Villa de Leyva with the intention of breaking the journey halfway in Bucaramanga. Steve was especially keen to stop here as there was another opportunity to eat something odd, this time it was large bottomed ants! 

However when we arrived at Bucaramanga bus station and went to purchase tickets for the following day we discovered the journey to Santa Marta was not the mere 8-9 hours the guidebook proclaimed. It was in fact 13-15 hours (i.e. had to be a night bus). So we booked ourselves on to the next bus out.

We arrived the following morning in the baking hot coastal city of Santa Marta (after 26 hours and 3 buses). We decided to head to the sleepy fishing village Taganga just a short taxi ride away (thankfully, as for reasons we still can't explain we had chosen the oldest most beaten up taxi I've ever seen. The clutch had gone, probably a good decade ago), but we got there in one piece.

We stayed in a lovely hostel complete with pool and palm trees, exactly what you'd expect for the Caribbean. The only drawback however (also due to it's Caribbean location) was that every inhabitant of this village felt the need to show off their (usually very ropey) sound system by placing it on their front porch and playing salsa music as loud as possible, at every hour of the day (or night). This is fine if you're relaxing by the pool but not so great at 6 in the morning when you're still trying to sleep! Add to that the hundreds of confused cockerels that seem to live here (apparently if your a Tagangan cockerel you start crowing at 2 in the morning!?) and tourists here get a lovely yet sleep deprived break. That is of course unless you´re Steve whose ability for falling asleep ANYWHERE came in very handy! 

Despite this we had a lovely time in Taganga and as you would expect we spent most of our time relaxing and eating nice food! We especially enjoyed all of the exotic fruit and juice. Amazing. Also good in the evening with a slosh of rum! 

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Photos

Taganga Bay
A great view, typically ruined by the excessive cables that run across every city, town and village

Ice Cream Seller
In Columbia they will go to any length to flog their goods!

Comments

[John]

Water saftey
I'm heading to Taganga in early February. I noticed you said you drank the rum. Did you drink it with ice? I've heard the water quality in those areas isn't that good.