Santa Marta, Colombia

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Hello and greetings from Arequipa, Peru! Finally, the internet is fast enough, and I´m lazy enough to spend a couple of hours in front of a computer. I´m going to try my darndest to catch up on Colombia (the weeks later!). So here goes!

Santa Marta

After our night and day in adventure capital of San Gil, the team, including Sue, Kim and fellow traveler Mike, set off on a night bus to Santa Marta. Santa Marta is on the caribbean coast of Colombia and approximately 10 hours by bus from Santa Marta (if memory serves, which it doesn´t really). There is something to note about Colombian buses - they are freezing at night! So when we got off in Santa Marta, bundled in jeans, long sleeve shirts, jackets, it was sweltering hot. We had definitely arrived at the coast! We got to our hostal, La Brisa Loca, around 730 am. Not much to do so Sue, Kim and I walked down to the beach for some breakfast. The beach actually wasn´t that nice, surprisingly. I think the girls, being from San Diego, and I, having experienced some of the most beautiful beaches the world has to offer, were a bit disappointed. After breakfast, the girls went back to the hostal. I saw some tall buildings at the far end of the beach. Hoping they were hotels that would have nice pools, I headed in that direction. The buildings ended up being nice apartment complexes. I managed to make myself cozy poolside for a couple of hours, swam a couple of laps, dried off in the nice breeze. At 1030 or so, I made my way back to the hostal. It was already sweltering hot. Sweltering hot pretty much encompasses my entire time at the coast (see previous post).

A note about La Brisa Loca. Kim has a friend who is friends with the owners of La Brisa Loca. They are two brothers that grew up not too far from San Francisco actually. They realized they had an opportunity in Santa Marta and seized it. Every night, they made sure they took us (and everyone else who wanted) out for a fun night out on the town. I absolutely loved one place we went called La Puerta with its open courtyard for dancing and old soul, jazz and reggae records decorating the brick walls. And here is the thing about Santa Marta - it might not be the loveliest beach, but it´s definitely the jumping off point for a lot of other fun things. Over the next few days, we´d charter a boat to take us to some isolated beaches in the area. Another day we rented chairs and a shade structure at a neighboring beach called Rodadero where an endless stream of people would come by offering us fresh ceviche, plaintains, mangoes, massages, handmade jewerly, hammocks, beer (to save on wait time, we had a cooler brought to us)... At this same beach, we rented kayaks and went out to a small island that used to be owned by a druglord. There he built a massive boat-themed house. It was later seized and has since fallen into disrepair but man, you could tell there was some partying going on out there!

It is also a jumping off point for Tayrona National Park. Which will be the next blog...

In the meantime, here is the Santa Marta flickr set - http://www.flickr.com/photos/69192286@N00/sets/72157622632126680/detail/

P.S. I already have a bunch of sets for the rest of my Colombia trip up on flickr in various stages. If you want to jump ahead of the blogs, you can go here, but be warned, there are lots of duplicate photos I still have to delete, and lots that need labeling. Plus, no videos are up yet: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69192286@N00/collections/72157622505084226/

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Comments

[jay]

nice
it's always great to get your travel blogs. and see your wonderful pics. more pics please. jAy aka jAswhO?