El Caribe

(Sept 18, 2012)

Santa Marta is a town located on the northern coast of Colombia about 4 hours (250km) up the coast from Cartagena.  Santa Marta doesn’t have the same fame that Cartagena does however it is much more popular among Colombian tourists who dislike the high prices and hordes of foreign tourists in Cartagena.

On our first day in Santa Marta, we decided to head off to the fabled Tayrona National Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tayrona_National_Natural_Park) to explore for the day.  We had planned to perhaps spend the night but in the end the prohibitively expensive prices encouraged us to make it a day trip instead. 

After catching a bus to the park and paying admission (~$20 for tourists and $8 for Colombians), we were required to pay to catch a second bus to actually ENTER the park (our other option was the walk the 5 kilometers down the entrance road).  10 minutes later we finally arrive in the park itself and quickly decide we want to start exploring.

We looked briefly at a map (Robin loves maps(!)) and then head off towards the beach.  The beach proved to be a 45 minute hike down donkey trails (they use donkeys to supply the campsites and various other tourist amenities with food and water) but we were up to the sweaty challenge.  I was particularly fascinated with the swarms of ants that crossed the path carrying all manner of things back from to their kingdoms.  Sometimes the swarms were so large that their millions of tiny little footfalls had cleared paths through the dense brush on either side of the man-made trail.  Amazing!

We made our way down to the beach and climbed some rocks to appreciate the views and enjoy our lunch.  Tayrona was truly beautiful and if we had more time we could have enjoyed it and explored it more fully.  As it was we spent some more time wandering the beach, took some photos (which you’ll see soon) and decided to head back to our blissfully air conditioned room.  That night we watched Romancing the Stone to prepare ourselves for the next day’s sojourn to Cartagena (it turns out it didn’t paint a very accurate picture, damn it Hollywood!).

The following day we spent a few more hours exploring around Santa Marta before heading off to the vaunted Cartagena.  Cartagena was the major port during the Spanish occupation of Colombia and saw both the introduction of slaves INTO Colombia and the export of riches OUT of Colombia.

By this point we were getting tired of the humid hot, hot, hot weather on the coast so we decided to only spend one day in Cartagena before heading back south towards cooler mountain air.  During our day in Cartagena we wandered the twisting streets full of colonial architecture (beautiful), explored the Castillo de San Felipe (bats) and relaxed on wonderful patios.  

After our relaxing day in Cartagena, we packed our bags once more and headed to a night bus bound for Medellin.  This turned out to be the most expensive night bus we’d taken thus far but as we’ve been fairly good at budgeting (thanks, Robin!), we could afford it.

The bus ended up being 14 hours but both Robin and I were able to sleep for quite a bit of it.  However, around 4 am I woke up with an upset tummy.  I immediately decided I had appendicitis (being a hypochondriac is new to me, really) and tried to make a plan for how I would continue to travel sans appendix.  I endured the rest of the bus ride and, after discussing with Robin, decided to head to a clinic once we reached Medellin to get myself checked out (the ailments were piling up!).