Santa Marta - Blogabond

We arrived in Santa Marta after about 6 hours crossing the border to Colombia. This was probably the most nervous I have been during a border crossing, because we had heard a lot about how dangerous it was and that it could take forever getting your stamps and also that there were similar checkpoints as the ones we drove through in the beginning of Venezuela, and I did not want to show my penis for any more militaries.

But amazingly enough everything went as smooth as cutting butter with a knife.
We went passed 12 checkpoints but only got stopped twice and they only wanted to see our passports and even then they barely looked at them this is including the border crossing as well and nobody wanted to search our bags for that matter either.
They only opened the trunk once as we entered Colombia and nothing more.

For the crossing we paid 55 bolivares per person in departure tax and another 50 per person in the por puesto from Maracaibo to Maicao and there we got the bus to Santa Marta.
The only problem we actually had was when we had just gotten in to Colombia and was on our way to Maicao there was another checkpoint, Colombian this time and we had to get out and I gave the officer my passport, he flipped through it once, twice and then a third time really slowly, he was looking quite serious by now, and he took Steffis passport looked trough it once and then looked at us and said “But where is your Colombian stamp?”
At this time I could feel the heart beating in my throat, and I was trying to figure out what we could have missed.
Because in our precious guidebook that we by now had lost almost complete faith in, it had said clearly that it was very important to make sure to get all the stamps, and pay all the exit fees.
Otherwise there would be problems in Colombia. So we had been so sure that there was nothing we had missed.

I got the passport back and went for the page were the Colombian immigration officer had put his stamp, found it and showed it to the officer, hands shaking and the pulse beating in my throat.
He smiles and says something like “oh, there it was.” And also that it wasn’t the color he was used to.

Both of us still a bit shaken got to Maicao and straight away caught a bus to Santa Marta for a 4 hour trip. Went straight for a hostel that was ok but not too expensive but the best part was that the toilet didn’t have a door. Only like a shower curtain so this made us come closer to each other in a whole new way…

The following day we took off to Taganga, a small fishing village only 10 minutes away from Santa Marta but a lot nicer, small, about 12 dive shops and a really relaxed atmosphere. We also found a really good hostel a bit more expensive but we figured we could afford it and it felt really good to relax and rest from the traveling for a while.
So we spent 5 nights there not doing much at all sitting at the beach and just relaxing.
We went for a dive one day after been to most of the different dive shops looking for the best price. We went out with the cheapest one and you really actually do get what you pay for.

We got the equipment and after that it took until we were about to jump in the water before even finding out who our guide was then he gave the whole briefing in Spanish so we understood bits and pieces but not all.
Luckily the other guide saw the dilemma and explained the general idea of the dive in English.
We went in and then the guide went on his dive and me and Steffi went on our own almost out of visible range the diving was so-so but we saw a sea horse though and that made me happy!
Otherwise we didn’t see that much at all, some morays but the visibility wasn’t the best. The second dive was a lot better though. Or maybe not but we found a couple of snake eels and also our guide had woken up and took a more active part of the guiding not only showing the way but actually pointing out some fishes as well.

All around Taganga there are hills and a lot of them are quite high and give an amazing view so one day we climbed and walked for almost 2hours to get to the top and we got an amazing view seeing all the way to Santa Marta and also along way into the Tayrona national park.
The sun was really hot that day and it felt like we were walking around in a desert because of all the cactuses.
The nature here reminded me a lot of Greece and Cyprus with really reddish earth and almost no trees.

On our last day in Taganga we did a one day tour to the Tayrona national park. It was beautiful, First we had to walk through the jungle (the landscape being a lot different than from Taganga with really dense jungles and monkeys) and along the water to get to the best beach.

dangerous beach

Tyrona park

Unfortunately we only had time to stay there for about 2 hours and then we had to run back to catch the bus that was supposed to pick us up and drive us back.

So when we got to the parking only about 5 minutes late the bus hadn’t shown up yet and the park was closing. We borrowed a phone and rang the bus driver who told us he was on his way and about 30 minutes away, meaning that he had just left Santa Marta.
When he had driven us back as compensation we only paid half price for the ride back.

A happy donkey

Next day we headed of to Cartagena to meet up with a couchsurfer.

Ciao
Chris

written by

Steffi & Chris on December 8, 2009 from Taganga, Colombia

from the travel blog: 212 days

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Amigos! Vilka underbart vackra bilder, sitter och drömmer mig bort här på jobbet... :) Quiero decir: !feliz navidad! (I förskott visserligen..) Sänder över en stor portion kärlek. Kramar från Muttan

written by La Mutt on December 23, 2009

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