¨Santa Marta
Trip Start
Oct 10, 2006
1
44
110
Trip End
Ongoing
Santa Marta, ***,
Colombia
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Well have arrived in Colombia for better or worse! Flew into Barranquilla yesterday and taxi-ed it into city to get a bus to tourist hotspot Santa Marta.
Santa Marta is a nice town. A lot bigger than we had originally thought it would be. We´re really here to use it as a base rather than for itself but it has an average beach on the Caribbean coast and a delicious smoothie cafe beside our hostel, so it´s all good! Extremely hot and humid but the sea breeze in the evening times (so far anyway!) makes it bearable. I know most of ye reading would do anything for heat at the moment but sometimes sweaty, sleepless nights and sweaty, energyless(yeah I know, prob not a word!) days can get tiresome...but don´t worry, I know how lucky I am!!
Colombia seems quite expensive so far.,..well by Latin American terms. We were in Supermarket today and there were bout 3 different breads that were 7 dollars or more each...at least, it might make us eat something other than bread and biscuits for a change!
Headed off to a little fisherman town called Taganga today. It is a really different place. Beautiful horseshaped bay surrounded by real desert like mountains that actually have cactuses on them!
My impression of Colombian people v. mixed so far. The women seem very friendly and helpful. The men aggressive and over-powering..but that may be because I´ve unconsciously chatted in a normal way with the women and any of the men that we have talked with have been trying to sell us stuff. Collins and I call them "jinoteros"..think it means jigilo in English. It´s what they were called in Cuba so it´s just kind of stuck with us.
Colombia´s bit crazy. Had my first feeling of fear since El Salvador (in Guatamala and El Salvador, there were so many places you had to be careful and any time you saw a man coming towards you with a machete in his hand, you momentarily froze) when we reached the bus stop in Barranquilla, there were a few buses that could take us to Santa Marta and each of the men were trying to get us on their bus. They were being really aggessive and shoving up against me so I let out a few expletives and pushed the two more forceful ones back. They then turned to each other and started punching the living daylights out of each other..I hopped on the bus that had the woman jinitera!
We were in Santa Marta one hour (and outside 10 minutes) when we got our first drug offer. We also saw the employee in our hostel doing a "secret handshake" with a Norweigan boy in the smoothie cafe beside us...he hasn´t approached us yet, however. None of this is so surprising, however, considering that Colombia accounts for 80% of cocaine in the world.
Think as long as you stay clear of this sort of thing and watch your back at all times, we´ll be fine...TOUCH wood! And pray for us!
On a lighter note, the Colömbian women are fabulous. There aren´t as many "savage birds" as I imagined..they all have the big chests but many have big waistlines aswell---but as Collins quite rightly pointed out, when you do see a good looking one (bout every 1 in 20), she really is good looking. It´s true, there have been about three women so far that have left even me open-mouthed!
I had started a competition yesterday on "savage women V savage men.". Although I was doing quite well yesterday on a 10-8 to the women, I´ve kinda given it up today because I would inevitably lose..not because I´m a loser mind but because .firstly, no matter where you go in the world, there are always a lot more good-looking women than men (if anyone disagrees, LET me know where!!) We have make-up, heels etc to help us. Secondly, I´m naturally unobservant and half blind without my prescription sun glasses which I cannot wear ALL of the time..Thirdly, we´re always in places that have more women than men, like supermarkets
And fourthly, and most importantly, Collins didn´t know how to play by the rules. The deal was "good looking", not who we´d be willling to marry like!..He´d give an only ok looking gal in tight jeans and heels a second look but he firmly disputed a guy I mentioned because he was washing himself with a bucket on the street...like the guy was tanned with hazel eyes, big round shoulders and a six pack..just cos he was poor shouldn´t have come into it. So with the chances of being a loser so high (an unfair loser at that!!), I naturally threw in the towel! Plus if I make a conscious effort to notice all the beautiful women, I would probably never wanna step outside the door again!!
The plan at the mo is to relax here tomorrow and then on Tuesday, we´re going on a 6 day hike into the jungle to see the "lost city" that was only discovered (typically) by grave robbers in 1975. Dreading it in a way cos still v. unfit plus my body playing puck at mo. But sher it´ll have amazing views and might be lucky enough to have some slow coaches in the group with me!
