Blogs from Taganga, Colombia, South America - page 2

Großstadtflair zu Weihnachten, Natur pur zwischen den Jahren und karibischer Strand zu Silvester und Neujahr... Mein Flug nach Bogotá, in die Hauptstadt Kolumbiens, war relativ kurz und gemütlich, das Flugzeug war so leer, dass fast jeder Passagier 3 Sitze für sich hatte, aber Heiligabend wollen die meisten Leute wahrscheinlich auch nicht im Flieger sitzen... :) Angekommen, Gepäck abgeholt, das ging alles ganz schnell und schon war ich draußen... allerdings musste ich noch 1 1/2 h auf die Mama warten, die erst etwas später ankam und so hab ich mir den einzigen Plastikstuhl geschnappt, den es da vor dem Ausgang gab und hab mich zwischen die Securityleute gesetzt! Da gabs immer was zu schauen und Mamas Flug war auch überpünktlich und so verging die Zeit ganz schnell! Haben uns riesig gefreut, uns wieder zu sehn und es ... read more

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all my blog readers! Sorry my blogs are getting later and later, as my trip goes on it seems to get harder and harder to find the time to write. I will try and get better for the remainder of my trip, which seems to be fast approaching. I will admit it, I was also a little scared to go to Colombia since it has consistently been ranked as one of the most violent countries in the world. The guerrilla organization FARC is the cause of many problems within the country and one of their main money makers is to kidnap tourists and government officials and hold them for ransom for many many years. Thus I will not be taking buses from city to city, instead I will fly which ... read more

Firstly, I want to clear up that it wasn’t a case of me ‘finally relinquishing control’ of the blog. In fact, I have been trying to get Donna to write a blog for a good couple of months now, and she only finally agreed recently. I am hoping she will write more in the coming weeks too, a) because Donna is an awesome writer, and b) so you don’t get bored of my waffling and bus stories! (Incidentally, our bus to Taganga did break down, but I’m not even going to mention that at all!) Anyway, as Donna mentioned, we were leaving Cartagena for a week or so to go up the North coast of Colombia to try get some much missed sun, and to check out a couple of the beaches that Colombia had to ... read more

Taganga turned out to a launching pad of adventure for us. We had met our friend Dominic in Cartagena and now we'd made the four hour bus ride to the small coastal town of Taganga on the Caribbean coastline. This was a quick visit for a couple of days while we made our way towards Santa Marta and to embark on the trek to The Lost City. We arrived at night and got setup in a hostel before heading out and about on a session around the lively village. Taganga is noted as a good place to get Scuba certified on the cheap and also has a bit of a reputation as a bit of a party town. Lucky enough, we had our Scuba certs completed, so after a night on the town, Dominic and I ... read more

Today the alarm rang at 5:30 a.m., which is really really early for anyone aware of my sleeping habits, which are not those of an early riser. Unfortunately, it was necessary given that our guide was coming to pick us up at 6 a.m. for our trek to Tayrona National Park. At 6 we were greeted by our guide, Bruno, who would prove to be a great asset, as he was energetic, funny, extremely knowlegable about the prak and a wealth of information about the history of Colombia. He took us to a breakfast place to begin, where we had arepa (which is a flat, round, patty made of cornmeal) and eggs. This was second time trying this Colombian specialty and it was much better than the first time...I think because it had more butter this ... read more