Taganga

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Not much seemed to change at first glance in Colombia, once in Macao we bought a couple of tickets for Santa Marta, Deb wasn´t feeling well at this stage and it didn´t help when we realised that there was five nice modern buses lined up, we had managed to but tickets for the old disheveled bus. The bus was full of peoples belongings and boxes of goods. We managed to find seats (albeit at a strange angle that wouldn´t change) and on our way. We were stopped a couple of times at military checkpoints (I think the state of our bus may have arose some suspicion). We were even hauled off and the men searched at one stage.
Once in Santa Marta after 18 hours in total and Deb not feeling well, we put her to bed to rest. It was the last day of a week long festival and the shorefront was blocked off and people everywhere enjoying the sun, eating, drinking and salsa dancing in the bars. We had a quiet night in the air conditioned room watching the beauty contest taking place in Santa Marta.
Following day we had a wander around the town (first town to be settled in South America) and went to the gold museum to see a bit of local history regarding the Tayrona Indians. A short taxi trip and we were in Taganga. A nice bay set around some dry mountains. A bit of a backpacker hideaway I was led to believe, backpackers were outnumbered at least 3 - 1 by hippies. We had a great hotel "Casablanca" literally right on the beach with a great balcony to view the sea and the fabulous sunsets in the evening. It was very hot in Taganga but we enjoyed our days lazing about and at the beach and a beach around the corner. I met a couple of nice Colombian guys, one who had great English and I had lunch with them one day, a lovely whole grilled fish with rice and plantain and they made sure I didn´t get the gringo price. One thing we did enjoy in Taganga was the food and drink. The shop below us did the most wonderful juices, banana, strawberry, pineapple and even tried a Maracuya juice. Deb found a great place for grilled meats and kebabs which kept her very happy and content. We were going to go to Tayrona National Park which is very well known, more tropical than Taganga. But with all our gear and we were enjoying Taganga so we never made it. We wanted to do a day trip there by boat, the guy wanted 100USD to take us, he went down to 50USD but we thought a bit rich to see a few beaches, so on a whim we decided to pack up and soon enough we were on the bus to Cartagena

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Comments

[Jessica]

Looking to be there
Hi I am currently researching Colombia as a destination and wondering how much you paid for your hotel wt ac in Tananga? Especially during the national holiday... I'll continue to read your blog and others...thanks for sharing!

[deankay2]

Prices
Hi Jessica, Colombia is a great place, we stayed in Casa Blanca right on the beach in Taganga. No aircon only fan. It was 50,000 pesos for the two of us (about $25). I think we arrived just after the holiday, the place seemed quite busy. We were using the South America on a shoestring guide March 2007 issue. Most of the accomodation was about double what was in the book. Buses and food etc were not much different from the book.