This post exposes you to true Colombian adventure. We travel to Santa Marta, a seaside city at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which is the official northernmost start of the mighty ANDES MOUNTAIN RANGE. We travel into the jungle to spend two nights on a river where the infamous Marihuana (Weed) and Cocaine (Coca) industries first started in 1970 and 1986 respectively.
Its 545am and the waves outside our unit are pounding. At 630am our landlord Jackie turns up and we pay her and order an Uber to the Cartagena Bus Terminal some 14km away. There we board a local aircon coach to Santa Marta leaving at 9am. Terrific ride. I prepare the Cartagena post while Antonia snacks and sleeps. The scenery is stark. Dusty hot towns and villages until we get back to the Caribbean coast for views of the sea. At 230pm we pull into the Santa Marta bus station but no Ubers. It is stinging hot and humid and we are drenched in sweat so a taxi will have to do. Much to our surprise it is fixed price at only $6AUD to take us 6km to our seaside hotel. Our room smells bad. We back off. We then get switched and when we question the cleaner (and not the owner), she admits that a rat had been dead in that room. I thought this is it – if Antonia doesn’t demand to leave then I will. I hate rats. But much to my surprise Antonia accepts the alternate room and we resurrect ourselves with cold showers. It is now 4pm and we agree that we will tour Santa Marta downtown in 2 days time when we get back from the jungle in Taironaka. We head to the currency exchange to get more local cash and then to the supermarket. Our first impressions of downtown are good and bad and unfavourable overall. Good because the place is vibrant, noisy and full of activity. Bad because the buildings are run down, many homeless and all the fancier shops have armed security guards at the entrances. Imagine Myer or David Jones with this. We stocked up on rum & coke, wine, cheese, olives and chips for the jungle trip and headed back to feast on our supermarket bonus of roast chicken and veggies with movie.
Jungle day (Sat 9MAR) started at 6am for me with a 10km run through the back suburbs of Santa Marta. Bad. Rubbish. Traffic. Homeless. 6am greeted me with 26C and 82% Humidity. Ridiculous. My saviour was a breeze, which helped me, bust through this. When I got back Antonia was packed and ready for brekkie, which was included with a tasty tomato onion omelette on a cornbread toast. Our private 4WD Toyota turned up right on time at 930am and we where off into the highlands of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta but not quite. We would drive 66km and 2hrs around their base slightly inland from the Caribbean Coast brining us to Don Diego, a little village on a river of the same name. The big surprise of this morning trip was our driver and guide – Juan David – only 19yrs old but full of ambition and drive. He begged his parents to send him to private English lessons, which he then used to get a job with local tourist company Magic Tours at the tender age of 14. Amazing. Congratulations. He is now 6mths away from getting his Guide License which will enable him to guide anywhere in Colombia and start his own business. But that’s not all. He applied to come to Perth Australia to study IT, which he wants to be his long-term career. Hey, Gen Z – put that in your pipe (vape) and smoke it !!! At Don Diego we enjoyed a fantastic lunch of fried local fish steak (like swordfish) with rice and squashed lightly fried plantain. The setting was idyllic – on the Don Diego River and under a thick rain forest roof. We then hoped on a local boat and motored 15min up stream to an Ecolodge powered only by solar and diesel generator. It is above the river and actually located on an archeological site with the ruins of a village belonging to the indigenous Taironas Peoples that lived here from 200AD to 1650AD after they were run out by the Spanish who came here in 1501AD seeking the mythical all-gold city of El-Dorado. You can see the stones that made up the base of their huts and there is a fully reproduced hut mock-up here, which you can see in the photos below. Juan David took us on a one-hour walk of the site and explained all the history of it. He also explained how the Colombian drug empire began in this very place higher up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains making it harder for police to spot the plantations. There are no more drugs in this area now since they have moved south to higher more rugged altitudes with no tourists. In 2005 the Colombian and US Governments made a deal to poison weed and coca plants in this area in exchange for military assistance from the USA. It worked but the so-called cartels moved their operations to the extreme south. Cartel killings now are nowhere near as bad as they were between 1980 and 2000 at the peak of the drug empires in Colombia. This Juan David briefed us well. The one thing that has not changed in the Taironaka Jungle are the mozzies. They are everywhere. Our huts were equipped with fans and mozzie nets over our beds. After our walk we bad farewell to Juan David at around 3pm and went for a swim in the Don Diego River. Perfect. Crystal clear, drinkable but flowing too fast for a distance swim. At 4pm all electricity ceased since the solar panels ran out of charge due to the long cloudy day and no batteries. On a normal sunny day solar lasts until 6pm when the diesel generator kicks in until 6am the next day to drive the fans that enable you to sleep. I understand this having implemented solar in Sierra Leone – over here it rains 8mths of the year so batteries are not practical or economical – you need diesel for those rainy months otherwise you would need to install 1000 batteries at $500USD each – no go. Antonia and I headed to the dining area under a huge thatched tepee where we got a slight breeze and were able to blog offline – text and picture culling but no internet. At around 630pm the generator fired up and a smile came across Antonia’s face. A second and larger smile appeared on Antonia’s face some moments later and I knew that our dinner had arrived. A lovely fish fillet, veggies and fries for Antonia and the same for me except the fish was pork. The veggies were especially delicious in a slightly sweet pepper spice sauce. The fries were actually chips – hand cut and beautifully lightly fried allowing an outside crunch. This place is consists of thatched accommodation huts, a thatched reception with the all-important satellite router inside, a simple thatched museum dedicated to the indigenous, a thatched kitchen and a big thatched tepee dining area. The whole place is in thick jungle above that crystal, drinking water river. Sublime. The place is owned and run by Carlos who brought his wife, son and daughter to make a new life in the northern Sierra Nevada Jungle of Colombia.
The next day (Sun 10MAR) was rest day. We slept from 10pm to 9am. Needed it. Also need a brekkie of tomato onion omelette and corn pancakes whose name escapes me (cause I am writing this after 3 glasses of wine…). At 10am we walked 15min along a jungle trail into the tiny village of Don Diego on the same river of the same name as our ecolodge. Given it was Sunday, the custom is for the entire village to have a picnic and swim by the river. Latino music also blares from most homes to complete the custom. Antonia was in heaven. We were the only Gringos here enjoying the locals and taking terrific photos below with the locals including the Tayronas indigenous peoples who look very much like descendants of the Incas. We spent a while on the river shore with the locals before returning to the ecolodge around 1230. It was 2hrs of solo bliss – I felt that Antonia had finally understood the magic of travelling so alone that you are the only ones in the local scene, soaking up genuine culture and people unplanned with not another gringo in sight. We headed straight to the river below our room to relax. Not yet. I detected a slow spot in the river flow and pulled off a 20-lap 2.3km swim in a section 110m long like I had done in the Amazon River in 2011. There is no substitute for experience. I was stoked. So much so I snoozed for the next hour on a riverside covered “bed” alongside Antonia in her sunlit deck chair. An amazing afternoon. We needed this rest to fire us up for the last three destinations high in the Andes. It would be our last hot humid seaside experience before our Andes ascent towards home. We returned to the dining area to have a late lunch at 330pm, which was included so we could save on buying another dinner later – we still had plenty of ham, cheese and wholemeal soft tortillas in our portable kitchen anyways !!! We blogged and diary-ed away until 10pm quite satisfied with the native experience we had today.
It is so great to sleep in a second night in a row (9am). We really needed it. This is the upside of staying in a jungle retreat since there is nowhere to run early in the morning. After brekkie we paid the bill and waited for our boat to arrive to take us to Don Diego village for the drive back to the same Santa Marta hotel. We set out 30min late – Colombian time or to put it more generally, South American time. The drive back only took 90min and we were glad it was blue sky in Santa Marta as we planned to go swimming that afternoon. Arrived at 1pm, threw on our cozzies and headed to the local beach just 300m walk from our hotel. It was breezy and the water had some chop but that did not stop me swimming 8 laps of the beach to clock 1.7km. My third and last swim in Colombia since tomorrow we would be travelling into the Andes until the end. A bunch of young boys crowded around sunbathing Antonia and we even made a little friend who appeared homeless swimming in his jeans. At 3pm we headed back to the hotel to shower and head to the supermarket. Along the way we sussed out places for cocktails and dinner tonight to celebrate our last day on the coast. It worked. We stocked up in the supermarket and headed home for pres. At around 530pm we headed out to Parque de los Novios, a big plaza surrounded by bars, cafes and restaurants. We started on our happy hour Margaritas, Mohitos, Cuba Libre cocktails at $10AUD for two !!! Good news is that happy hour in Santa Marta lasts all night !!! After three rounds hunger kicked in and we walked down Calle 5 known for its eateries and found a place with a great range at great prices. This is where the fun began. We soon found out that this location is visited by many passing buskers from singers to fire throwers. Then along comes a guy attached to two manikins by horizontal poles – one in front and one behind. Any move he made they made. Never seen anything like it before. So creative. He creamed it. Everyone laughed and gave him money. He would get the front manikin to hug and kiss random people in the crowd or dining. The rear manikin he would back up into people’s laps and commence a “dirty dancing” hip-swinging routine. Hilarious – can only be appreciated on film. We enjoyed another three rounds here after dinner before the acts ran out and we pined for some sleep before our solo walking tour of Santa Marta Centre followed by our journey from the Caribbean Coast to the Andes Inland…
We set out to discover Santa Marta centre around 830am. Blue sky and getting hot. The centre is small and did not take long to discover so we slowed it down throwing in shopping for Antonia. Success on both fronts. Antonia bought her fill and I captured everything, both by 1030am. We visited the following sites in Santa Marta: Santa Marta Sign, Simon Bolivar Park (National Library, Museo del Oro), Plaza San Francisco, Basilica de Santa Marta, Carrera 5 (Historic Centre), Calle 19 (Pedestrian Street), Parque de los Novios, Camellon de la Bahia (Beachfront Promenade).
We returned to the hotel early so at that point we threw in an unplanned swim since our flight to Medellin was not until 5pm. Plenty of time. This time we swam further south of the main beach exactly in front of our hotel by 300m. The water was heaps better – no wind and supper calm and clear. So much so that it reminded us of Greece. We had this little beach all to ourselves until the homeless started to arrive to bathe here. Poor souls. We felt bad but at least this place was pollution free. We left our last swim at 1130 and went back to pack and leave. By 130pm we were enjoying tasty sloppy local burgers in the Santa Marta International Airport, 17km from town and quite modern. Most flights were to Bogota with one to Panama. We enjoyed a long afternoon of airport coffee and blogging until we took off at 5pm to wave goodbye to an milky green Caribbean Coast.
Enjoy the jungle and coastline of Santa Marta…
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