Dusty, Fishy Taganga

Our overnight bus ride from Bucaramanga wasn't fun, but it wasn't completely miserable either. We left around 10:30pm, and after several hours of twisting through the Andes, passing through a few random towns that I could never find on a map, and trying to force our way to sleep, we dropped into a huge valley just as the sun began to light the sky over the mountain ridge to the east.

The daylight exposed a different world from what we've been experiencing in the various Andean towns we've visited up to this point. Endless orchards of plantain trees, occasionally interrupted by sketchy shantytowns, dominated the remainder of the ride to the coast.

When we arrived at the Caribbean, the landscape became a dusty, dry desert with a lot of cacti and not much else. Our bus stopped at 7am at the terminal on the south end of Santa Marta, and from there we took a 20 minute cab ride to the neighboring village of Taganga. Perhaps it was the negative bias resulting from our lack of sleep, or maybe it was the extreme heat and humidity, but we weren't impressed much by this place. It was dirty and even the beach was lamer than average. We found a hostel called Bayview that looked pretty nice, and checked in to a private room, where we promptly passed out until early afternoon.

We explored the town in the afternoon and confirmed our first impression – we aren't into this place. Besides a few newer hotels and hostels, the rest of the buildings in town are run down, and the streets are overrun with trash and the gnarliest stray dogs we've seen yet. Due to its proximity to a number of scuba diving sites, the town is extremely popular with tourists; it seemed like there were more tourists than residents in Taganga.

We were also disappointed in the Bayview hostel. The people there weren't friendly, and while we were looking to chill out, we found our room that night stuck next to a dance party taking place in the hostel. We managed to stream the second half of the Blazers game online and agreed that the next morning we would find a new place to stay.

We packed our bags the next morning and got a room at the Casa Holanda, a brand new bed and breakfast with a better location than our hostel for a few dollars less per day. That afternoon we went for a hike along the cliffs that hug the bay around Taganga. The trail was rocky and went through a series of small beaches separated by steep hills and cliffs.

Some of the beaches were inhabited by fishermen, while others were completely empty. After hiking about 2 hours the heat started to get to us, so we turned back and came into town just before sunset.



We had a pleasant surprise as we stepped back onto the beach at the trailhead. Our of nowhere, a Kogi indian came into view. Before our trip we had watched a documentary about the Kogi people, whose largest village is in the hills just outside of Santa Marta, so we were really excited to see one in real life. The Kogi wear all white, and the men compulsively chew coca leaves, activated with a powder of crushed seashells that they keep in a little wooden container and eat with a little dipstick. This guy was right out of the textbook. We didn't want to be awkward but Russ managed to take the picture of him below. In his left hand you can see his seashell stick. Yes!






The next day we started planning for our trip to Parque Tayrona the following morning. We ran into a couple, Johnnie and Jackie, that we had met briefly in Bucaramanga. They wanted to go to Tayrona as well so we decided to go together. Then we went into Santa Marta to do some shopping. Santa Marta was also pretty lame, like a big city version of Taganga. The streets were chaotic. We did find a very nice mall on the outskirts of town where Russ was able to buy some flip flops that come close to fitting him, as well as a big WalMart-style store where we stocked up on water, food for Tayrona, and the first diet Red Bull that we've seen this whole trip (so much for my new low caffeine diet). While we were in that store looking at some clothes, we heard a live salsa band start playing. I walked around the corner and sure enough, right there in the middle of an aisle there was a four-piece salsa band with two dancers, who performed for about 25 minutes while handing out coupons to the crowd that gathered to watch. Strange but effective marketing effort. I don't think it would go over well in the US though – we like our grocery shopping calm and collected.

That night we hung out with Manuel and Cecilia, who were staying in Santa Marta after spending a couple days in Cartagena. We planned to meet them the next morning so we could all go together to Tayrona.