Cabanas Don Rafa Santa Marta

... nonsense and having a day in Santa Marta I decided to have a scuba dive in playa concha. We saw Puffer fish, lion fish and lots of Moray eel.<br> <br>Walking into los baguettes de maria, like something out of the movies, the relatively old yet young (at heart) woman with,<br>what I can only describe as, a shower cap on her head and a fly swat in<br>her hand going at it hammer and tongs and I must admit she was ...

... travellers can appreciate a great variety of fish and coral.<br><br>We stayed in the cheapest Hotel in Santa Marta: Hotel Turismar, Santa Marta<br>Find all Hotels of Santa Marta here: Hotels in Santa Marta<br>

... br>Among the guests that evening were a few people i'd met back in Medellin, and were headed for Tayrona National Park the following day. This seemed like a fairly good plan to me, and worried about time (it was Monday and i needed to be back in Bogota by Friday evening at the very latest), i decided to book myself a flight from Santa Marta to Bogota saving myself a day (one hour versus at least twenty) and giving me an extra day at the national ...

... blocking the view of the ocean. Stacy said they would never cut these down in a national park. Minutes into breakfast, we heard a machete cracking at the trees and the trees falling. By the time we were finished with breakfast, we had an impressive view of the water. <br><br>I'll back up. Booking the Eco-Habs hotel was very difficult. No emails returned and initially no one spoke English on the phone. I emailed our hotel in Cartagena to have them ...

... we found out that he had been asking everyone on route if they had seen us. Of course no-one had because we had taken a different route and he was concerned that we had disappeared into the elements. He obviously didn&#8217;t know us. <br><br>We left around 5-30pm in Jose&#8217;s van and were back in Taganga around 7pm. I went into town and picked up some empanadas and smoothies whilst Jody and Niamh swam in the pool. We retired and planned to move on tomorrow.

... Colombians have nothing good to say about him.<br><br>But, anyway, we walked around Santa Marta, finally able to withdraw money from ATMs and eat real vegitables! We stayed at this dumpy backpackers hostal with a creapy reseptionist - skinny, greasy, 70, invited himself to the beach with us, etc. THe town is a small colonial city by the beach with not much to do or see. So, we were eager to head out to Taganga early the next morning ...

... kilomters away. As we prepared to leave our bags at the hostel and just take a few necessities, we were joined by Borko, a Croation microbiologist, Julian-a Southafrican nice guy, and Sarah- a belgian girl who annoyed the heck out of me because she was so slow to get moving all the time. To get to the beach, we had to take several little busses and then hike about 2 hours. Supposedly. Because getting five people groceries and on and off ...

... the Colombians did nothing but watch. The Aussie said the waves were too rough and alone he could not save the man. The man drowned and washed up onshore. <br> From this beach, we walked west down the coastline, following a dirt trail that faded into the palm tree forest and emerged back out to the next beach. There are four beaches, each accessible by the trail. The best one is the last one. Mud and dirt wasn't lapping up on shore and the waves ...

Day 4<br>We had wandered around part of the city when we arrived but it was raining, so we spent the morning of day 4 making the most of the sunshine and taking photos before the return descent.<br><br>The city is amazing, in terms of size, with 180 structures uncovered, there are many more to be unearthed. The structures are very similar to other sites in South and Central America although each has it´s own distinct ...

... great impression of Rambo. <br><br>Finally making it back at 2pm we had a victory lunch and waited for the pick-up. This had broken down so we ended up in the most uncomfortable jeep sitting sideways for 2 hours with a maniac driver. Phew, thank god that{s over. But there{s no rest for the wicked. Pips was straight off the next day to Parque Tayrona, but this time we were going to sit on the *******n beach!