Blogs from Santa Marta, Colombia, South America - page 34

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South America » Colombia » Santa Marta August 30th 2005

Santa Marta e Taganga De Cartagena segui para noroeste, para Santa Marta, a mais antiga cidade colombiana, apesar de ter perdido o seu carácter colonial. Em termos culturais a cidade oferece pouco, mas muito interessante do ponto de vista social. Aquí sim, sinto que estou na Colômbia. O planeamento urbano é incrívelmente simples, ruas paralelas numeradas, calle 1, calle 2, calle 3 e por aí fora, perpendiculares a avenidas paralelas e numeradas, avenida 1, avenida 2 e seguintes. O trânsito é caótico. Sobresaiem carrinhas de 9 lugares tipo Hyace que “voam” pela cidade transportando pessoas. São o transporte público número 1. Apesar de limitadas a 9 lugares está provado que podem transportar até 15 pessoas. 10 sentados e 5 “agachados”. O funcionamento deste sistema de transporte é bastante curioso. Para o mesmo trajecto competem várias empresas ... read more
02. Rua típica de Taganga
03. Assim se rema em Taganga
04. Entardecer

South America » Colombia » Santa Marta August 30th 2005

Ciudad Perdida Returned back from a six day trek to Ciudad Perdida. There were six of us in the group, plus our guide and cook. The days were fairly short, 4hrs but hot, very humid and incredibly sweaty. On several occasions I took off my top and wrang it out probably measuring a litre of sweat. Accommodation was in hammocks and bedtime was early. On the fourth night, we all got woken up by a loud bang, this was after spending the evening talking about the kidnapping of the tourists that happened 2yrs earlier. Our guide has told us the details over candle light that night, explaining he was the first guide to go up after the event. Anyway, the loud bang in the night shook us all but we all stayed silent in our hammocks ... read more
The factory
At the top of Ciudad Perdida
The group

South America » Colombia » Santa Marta August 27th 2005

Back last night from the Lost City. What a place! Shall I compare it to Macchu Picchu? Well, it´s smaller (or, at least, a lot less exposed) and a lot less maintained, and your group are literally the only people there (whereas in MP about half the world is soaking up the atmotsphere alongside you). The setting is great (as it was at MP) with lush mountainsides, waterfalls, low-lying clouds and the sound of monkeys and birds in the jungle. Oh My God. Just lost the rest of the entry because of the stupid stupid computers here being so stupid and pathetic. Bring on 5th Septmber and the arrival of my IBM Thinkpad, seamless broadband and a thousand experts at the end of the phone just waiting to sort out all your IT problems for you. ... read more

South America » Colombia » Santa Marta August 23rd 2005

Colombia? Well, as you all know, this country gets some real bad press. Awful in fact. And OK, if you are a politician or businessman, or even related to one, you are probably going to get kidnapped, threatened with death or murdered at some point in your life. It has the highest amount of kidnappings for any country on earth. If you score an own goal for the Colombian football team you may get shot dead in a bar (although that famous story is actually massively misconstrued). The country supplies 80% of the world's cocaine and has one of the highest day to day murder rates of any country on earth. There is, in effect, an ongoing civil war between right-wing paramilitaries, the left-wing Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government (who ... read more
Yours truly....
Group discussion
At the lost city

South America » Colombia » Santa Marta July 25th 2005

Phil, Sjoerd and Paul left for a six day hike to ciudad perdida, the ruins of a pre-colombian city in the National Park of Tayrona. Eva and I didn't have six days to spare, so we stayed in Santa Marta hoping to go for a couple of days trip to the beaches in Tayrona. Things didn't go quite as we had planned. Eva started getting worse. The weakness became pain all over her body and and very high fever. We went to the doctor´s repeated times, but they couldn't figure out what was going on, just said it must be virus infection. Since it looked like we would be stuck in Santa Marta for at least a few days while Eva was recovering, I decided to take a four-day scuba diving course. The course was great, ... read more




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