Activity Summary
Sunday 30th July - Day 299 (continued)
Flight to Santa Marta
Check in to hostel
Best Wings in Santa Marta
Takeaway pizza from Little Ouzo
Monday 31st July - Day 300
Tayrona National Park
Walk through Tayrona to Playa Cabo San Juan
Chill on Playa Piscina
Saw:
The endemic cotton top Tamarin
Green iguana (baby)
Capuchins
Dinner at Ouzo
Santa Marta sightseeing
Summary
Santa Marta
For the oldest city in Colombia it was a bit of a shit hole. The beach resort area apparently is a bit like magaluf and on the drive by seemed pretty resorty.
Centro Santa Marta is nice for about 2 blocks and rough as hell for the rest. We didn’t enjoy walking around and were warned about being out at night by our hostel which was a bit of a shock for such a small area. But it was a necessary stop for Tayrona and that is all.
Tayrona
A nice National park and trail through forest & beach (quite a lot like Cahuita in Costa Rica). A long way to go for some beach chilling (as it seemed most were here for) but we were in it for the walk and wildlife. First time we felt like we were back travelling properly doing fun things again.
Staying overnight in a tent / cabin just didn’t seem worthwhile for what were mediocre beaches.
Transport
Santa Marta
Cabify taxi -> Bogotá airport
Flight from Bogotá -> Santa Marta
Taxi from outside the airport to hotel
Tayrona
Public bus from corner of Calle 11 & Carrera 9 to El Zaino entrance
Cost = P8,000 each way
Accommodation
Santa Marta - Comunidad Calle 13 Hotel Boutique
Number of nights - 2
Price per night per person - £11
The hotel was pretty decent. It had aircon, a decent breakfast, hot water and it was secure. Comfortable enough that we could hide away from the scary outdoors in peace.
Diary
[Continued]
The flight to Santa Marta was pretty pleasant. Avianca was kind enough to seat us in the front of the plane and leave the middle seats free for both of us. Didn’t need to sit next to each other or even other people.
Once landed it was quick through the airport and on reading that the airport taxis were fine (even had official looking tags around their necks) jumped in one to Centro Santa Marta. He took a bit of a whack way but we made it there all fine and slowly becoming more trustworthy of cab drivers as time goes on…
What we didn’t count on, and the cab driver did try to explain in Spanish to us but we had no idea what he was in about, was a city parade that had split central in two. Annoyingly our cab driver had decided to drop us at at wrong side of town, and it had followed the nav would have been fine. So we ended up having to don our massive bags and try to find a way through a packed parade and across the procession through zip tied barricades. We had hoped they operated a London marathon style system.
Our first attempt being straight ahead from the taxi drop off was heaving so we quickly gave up and walked further down for a weak point. The next block was less busy but certainly not a weak point. We could have been at this for ages so Luke went straight to a police officer to see what we could do. He pointed to the barrier and a guy on the opposite side as the guy to go to but the problem was he was pretty far away and the crowd was 3 deep from the barrier.
Eventually after standing there like lemons and garnering support from very eager locals who wanted to help and also dance with Luke, managed to get this guys attention and force our way through the crowd. At the other end a local didn’t take kindly to Nicola trying to squeeze through a tiny gap but we were eventually let through by untying the barricades. A bit of a palava and we stood out like sore thumbs.
Eventually we made it to our hostel which seemed to be in a quieter and less pleasant part of town despite being in the very small centro area. We checked in and rushed out to try and get groceries but as it was 6pm on a Sunday nothing was open and the area was deserted and creepy AF. We swiftly gave up and ran away into a bakery place, bought a few emergency baked goods that didn’t look great and retreated back to the hostel.
There was a local wings place nearby so made the decision to try get a takeaway and avoid being out once the sun went down at all costs (were warned not to walk around at night by the hostel). Sadly Luke’s panic decision on 10 wings was nowhere near enough food for the both of us but were surprisingly actually really good. Nicola saved the day with a takeaway pizza delivered to the hostel door from little Ouzo and that sorted us out.
The afternoon was all a little bit stressful and neither of us were very happy at all. Added to that we had to try and plan our Tayrona trip for the next day and with the lack of supplies we had would not have made it very far if we left uber early like the guides suggested. Our hostel served us breakfast at 8pm and decided to risk queues for a good feeding.
In a continuation from the night before Luke was feeling all a bit overwhelmed. The decision to head to Tayrona later in the day played on his mind and the stress of being in a place that felt horribly unsafe again was not overly relaxing and he couldn’t shake it.
The breakfast however was banging and we got on a bus almost straight away when arriving at the bus stop between Calle 11 and Carrera 9 near the public market. Once on the road and doing things more akin to the travelling we enjoy Luke mellowed out.
The bus was fine given we had a seat next to the window. Others weren’t so lucky and stood the whole way although we were pretty much the only Gringos on the bus.
Our decision to leave post breakfast was the right decision. There was no queue to get into the National park at the El Zaino entrance which was the big worry. We paid the P6k cash fee for day insurance and peak entrance tickets cost P73,500.
The start of the fun part of the walk was a good 4km from the entrance so we got the shuttle down the boring and hilly road which cost P5k but saved a whole lot of boredom.
From here we set off in the 6km walk to Playa San Juan. Most of the hike was on a boardwalk through the jungle so it was pretty easy minus the masses of people we had to overtake along the way who had no walking etiquette.
The first point at which we reached the coast was probably the nicest viewpoint along the walk, the beach stretching out into the distance with large boulders along the coast, rough seas and steep jungle inland.
We had some lunch in the tree line of one of the beaches before carrying on. There was an amusing patch of sand / grass that seemed like a baby iguana cresh and until this point had been the most wildlife we had seen (too many people).
The walk continued mainly in the treeline which helped massively with the temperature. The various ice cream men dotted along the path also would have been useful should we have needed them.
At Cabo San Juan we found the majority of the park population attempting to soak up rays from what was now a pretty overcast afternoon. A very long way to go for a beach in our opinion (a good 2 hour walk if slow).
We went up to the viewpoint on the beach and then had a Cuantro at the bar for a rest.
This beach didn’t appeal a great deal so we walked back to Playa Piscina for a quick ankle deep wade before carrying on back to the entrance. None of the beaches were that great, much preferred the walk and we wanted to be back in Santa Marta for a decent time.
On the way back we had a much greater animal hit rate as there were barely any people now walking the path. We ended up seeing:
The endemic cotton top Tamarin
Green iguana (baby)
Capuchins (absolutely loads of them and they couldn’t have cared less about us)
Overall the hike was
Distance = 12.1km
Elevation = /\185m
Moving time = 3hrs 11mins
Elapsed time = 4hrs 8mins
The shuttle took us back to the entrance and on trying to find the stop for the local bus had an eager local proclaim to sell tickets. He was quoting the right price but we didn’t trust him at all given we had only ever paid for the bus while on it. So some stalling tactics from Luke ended this guy's interest in us and left angrily. Not quite sure if he was legit or not but we knew our method would work. The local bus money guy turned out to be an absolute gent, helping young and old on to the bus and carrying luggage all over the place. A bit of a legend.
Once back in town the supermarket was well and truly open this time so we stocked up on emergency supplies so we wouldn’t get into a mess like the night before.
We were back in town with plenty of light left so decided to walk into Santa Marta town for dinner at Ouzo. We did see a bit more of Santa Marta and it turns out the two blocks in the middle / the harbour aren’t as bad as initial thoughts. But outside of this the place is still terrible.
Nicola was so gassed over her pasta dinner.
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