Costa Azul Beach Hotel Santa Marta

After a long drive, with very expensive toll fees, we arrived in Santa Marta early evening. Santa Marta is one of the favorite vacation spots for Columbians. The city was much larger then I expected and it was very busy. It actually reminded me a lot of Asia. There were stalls and carts crowding the sidewalk and people mulling around everywhere. We went to a Chinese ...

... tent and food. I carried only water and my clothes....Mike rocked. Our hike had different encounters with nature.... leafcutter ants (video) men walking carrying fresh caught bonito (which I think is named due to its beautiful blue color), vines hang from trees, monkeys at the tops of palm trees, and an occasional deadly dropping coconut thumping on the ground. There were Eco Hab huts ...

Santa Marta is not a city of many attractions. It is however the first place we dip our toes into the Caribbean sea. But our reason for stopping here is to arrange a trek to Ciudad Perdida, the lost city. Built around 800AD, it was abandoned and completely covered by the jungle until its ´discovery´in the 1970s when tomb raiders started finding the gold buried under what used to be the funeral huts. Getting to the city and back is a 6 day hike (unless ...

... 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.

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 book the hotel for us and they told us that we would get an email ...

... 8217;s. Two of the beach area’s were not suitable for swimming, at one site over 200 people had drowned due to extremely strong currents. The other two areas were protected by a line of rocks about 200 metres out creating a natural bay area. These beaches, unlike at other beaches we had visited in Colombia, had golden sand and crystal clear water. There were Cabana’s, hammocks, and camping areas close by where those who had decided to stay the ...

... it was clear that it was not a very well developed fishing village, the roads were some of the worst we had seen. Along the seafront were some shops, many restaurants, hotels, a disco and the usual kiosks we have grown accustomed to. The road itself was under development, so it was closed to traffic and had large holes and mounds of soil ready to be used for the road surface. The town gently sloped towards the bay so that the houses, most in disrepair, all had a glimpse of the bay. The ...

... the other. Besides the four of us, there were only 5 other tourists staying on the beach. Paradise found!

Jorge, the dueño of the campsite we were staying in was really friendly. He´s a Colombian who studied at UNAM in Mexico and worked as a reporter until moving to this beach where he runs the campgrounds and works with the indigenous people in the area, the Kogi. He made us chicken curry for dinner and we ate by the sand ...

... started to talk. Bus got pretty full in the next few stops so I sat next to her. Ended up falling asleep on one another and later making out until we go to Santa Marta where I changed buses to Taganga. She gave me her number and e-mail and said to contact her when I was leaving and to come visit her. Pretty random thing to happen.
Arrived in Taganga pretty late and found a hostel some people I met in Nicaragua told me about. Checked in and got some food. I was pretty ...

Santa Marta is another large Colombian city, and along with Cartagena they are the top tourist spots for Colombians. They're both by the sea and both hotter than hell. Santa Marta is also the staging post for getting into the Tayrona National Park and Ciudad Perdida, the 'The Lost City', a 7 day round trip jungle hike.

Truthfully, we were heading to Santa Marta to find a party, because Cartagena was ...