To Santa Marta!

Wednesday, August 30th - so we decided to go to the town of Santa Marta, which would have normally involved taking the boat back to Cartagena amd then a taxi to the bus stop, bus to Santa Marta, taxi to hotel, presumably.

But when talking to the hotel staff they said they could arrange all the way to Santa Marta for 1,100,000 pesos ($275), yeah okay, cuts out all those stages. Amd otherwise we'd have been traveling late since the regular boat to cartagena would only leave at 3pm, get there at 4, we'd be lucky to get to Santa Marta by 8, amd I'm still leery of traveling after dark here. Colombia has come a long way but I've heard comparatively recent stories of whole busses being robbed after dark.

So we had a leisurely morning, had breakfast, went swimming, declined the crab man (who this time came by in a one person canoe), amd at 10:45 departed as the only passengers on a boat to Baru.

Baru is a peninsula of the mainland amd closest part of the mainland to the Rosario Islands. It only took ten minutes to reach land, then we entered a tunnel like channel in the mangroves that wound back amd forth through the tangle. We passed several similarly sized outbound boats.

It was around this time we learned by text of the coup in Gabon. Jesus there's a spate of coups in Africa lately. I was blaming Wagner but Wagner was snuffed out just the other day so who knows.

Anyway we came out of the mangrove tunnel into a little bay amd the docks of the town of Baru, looking like the very picture of a sleepy backwater with lots of small boats in various states of disrepair pulled up to the bank. We nosed up to the main dock. It was so shallow you literally couldn't get a boat bigger than these little things in. Here our driver was waiting for us in his surprisingly decent looking white sedan car. We transferred our stuff amd were on our way again.



The town of Baru was really run down for what's reputed to be a tourist destination, but i suppose tourists just go straight to the resorts amd hotels amd never see the town. There's a small town in the center of Rosario Island, i wonder if it looks like this too, while surrounded by the elegant hotels we saw.



The roads were compacted sand, some unusable, trash lay around, the houses had thick bars on their windows amd gates, though some were painted cheerful vibrant colors amd a bougainvillea overhung the street prettily here amd there.



Once we left town it was mainly mangroves on either side of the road, though for awhile we were driving just along the sea (amd mangroves on the other).



We slowed for some figures in the road, one leaning on a shovel, it turned out to be teenage girls filling potholes, amd the driver handed them some change as we passed. I'd seen a similar phenomena in Africa in the past, road repair volunteers working for tips, though it had always been men.



After awhile we got into more built up areas amd by amd by we were driving through cartagena (about an hour after leaving Baru, just after noon now). Stopped at an ATM to get the cash to pay this fellow amd continued on north of town.



I noted even on the major highway, which we were on now, one would see the occasional horse drawn cart.



Landscape outside of cartagena continued at first to be thick coastal scrub but gradually changed to savanna on low rolling hills.

Our driver seemed nice. Cristina amd he seemed to have some good conversations.

After about two more hours we were approaching the city of Barranquilla amd our driver asked if we wanted to have lunch on the boardwalk there or just hurry through. Si lunch on boardwalk por favor.



He took us to this place that was like a food court on the boardwalk beside the river, but don't you be picturing your local mall food court, i think it was the cutest most well decorated food court I've ever seen. It's name was Caiman del Rio amd it as decorated with hundreds of cute winged caimans all along the ceiling. Amd what was mysterious to me was that usually a food court is attached to a mall or other populous area, this seemed to be in an industrial area, not even a heavily peopled industrial area, with no obvious source of people wandering in for food (yes it was on the boardwalk along the river but nothing else was) but inside were over a dozen nice looking eateries amd plenty of customers. It was vibrant. It was really quite a mystery.



Anyway we ate at a place that specialized in tacos, amd brought one taco amd a coke to our driver.



Then we continued on our way. Crossed a bridge over the river (river Magdalena). On the pedestrian part of the bridge there appeared to be some people shooting a video involving two persons in furry amd/or dinosaur suits.

Passed through one of many toll booths shortly thereafter, but at this one i noted the toll booth attendant had allowed a young (9-10?) girl to stand literally just beside the window begging/trying to sell some packaged cookies. Our driver handed her some change.

After Barranquilla the road had wetlands on ether side of it for quite awhile. Finally we arrived in the town on the far side, which appeared to mostly consist of small cinderblock shanties with corrugated metal roofs, amd immense amounts of trash in the unpaved streets amd squares. Several soccer games going in soccer fields in the town though, apparently it was soccer o clock (5pm?)

A young man came to clean our windows at a stop light. I'm so used to waving away people that do that that it came as a surprise to me that our driver rolled down the window amd handed him some money. I suppose it can be a useful service.

After this town (Cienaga) some tall mountains actually loomed up ahead. As twilight was setting in we arrived in Santa Marta nestled in a valley by the sea. At a stop light some young men (17-20) started break dancing in front of the cars during the red light amd quickly went out to collect tips before it turned green. Our driver handed them some money as did a few other cars i believe.

Finally around 18:00 we arrived at our hotel. It seems quite nice, elegant and spacious amd for only $30 something a night.

Our driver put us in contact with someone who arranges tours here, so we're kind of being handed off from our previous hotel to our driver to this new tour person. Anyway it's just past midnight amd tomorrow is another day (I don't go in for this hogwash that it's already tomorrow since it's past midnight, it's not tomorrow till i fall asleep amd wake up)

Playa Blanca

Thursday, August 31st - our hotel here in Santa Marta is called "Soy Local" (I am Local), but the way i pronounce "Local," the English way, sounds more like Loco (crazy), so any time someone asks where we're staying it sounds like I'm saying "i am crazy."



Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs (decent), cold toast (just like the other place??), not-quite-ripe cantaloupe amd watermelon, amd, a first for the hotels of this trip, genuinely freshly squeezed orange juice.

Our local tour booking lady (whom our driver put us in contact with (who himself our last hotel had set us up with)) came to our hotel at around 9:30 to pick us up. We proceeded to a city beach. Where our tour lady got us set up for the day with the necessary tickets for things, coded into QR codes on wristbands. Amd then she sent us off on a water taxi to the next cove over, which doesn't appear to have any land connection to anywhere else.



I felt a bit unimpressed at first, it seemed to be "just a beach" amd we'd seen plenty of those lately.



But the immediate highlight was the tower on the ridge on one side and the lines running to it, high across the bay, from the other side! A zipline across the bay!

We did that first. That consisted of climbing the stairs to the lower station, where they got us all hooked up amd then we rode the zipline literally amd figuratively backwards as they pulled us across to the higher station. That trip we made tethered together, but from there they dispatched first Cristina amd then myself. It was very fun, we were at quite a height at that end. Somehow Cristina seemed to go faster than me amd hit the hanging pads at the terminal end hard, me i actually came to a stop before the end amd they had to throw a rope out to me amd drag me in.

Unfortunately couldn't get any pictures though Cristina got a video of me coming down.

Then we went amd swam in the water. Since this place, unlike Rosario, was crowded with people, i pretty much never let my eyes off our stuff or got very far from it, amd if anyone seemed to be lingering near it I'd immediately start approaching like an alligator ready to strike.

The water was very clear amd a nice temperature, though i still would have dismissed it all as "not as good as Rosario" except Cristina remarked a number of times that it was a really nice beach so I guess it was. Me i just don't like people 🙃



Returned to the city beach by water taxi, took taxi to the "gold museum" which was a museum containing pre Colombian artifacts, as well as information on local history until the present day. I found it all very interesting amd was disappointed we were kicked out at five after we'd been there about an hour.

Now we found ourselves by a square bordering on the city bay (the city beach we departed from was in a neighboring bay. We thought about walking back to our hotel but decided to call our cab back because the way back was 750m through narrow alley like streets that maybe could be dangerous.

We had half an hour to kill waiting for the taxi but it was pleasant by the seaside. Two general fashion observations: (1) i thought this was just an Australia thing but more recently I've seen it everywhere else amd it seems to have now become the pervasive women's fashion: why do women wear old man pants now? All my life i thought it was a given that everyone but old men wear their pants at their hips amd only ridiculous old men wear their pants at or above their friggen belly buttons. But now all the women seem to be doing it amd personally i think it's the fashion of the present decade that will look ridiculous in future ones. Second observation is that women now seem to more commonly stick their phone in their front waistband like a gun than their pocket. I suppose it's due to the current large size of phones. I wonder if it's somehow related to the high waists.

Anyway our taxi came took us back to our hotel. We relaxed for an hour or two amd then Cristina said "let's go for perro calientes!" I'd seen pictures of Venezuelan hot dogs, absolutely heaped with fixins, amd was eager to try one (assuming they're similar here). By now it was dark out so we were being bolder than usual venturing out. We left both our phones amd only took 50 kilopesos with us.

The narrow street the hotel is on continues straight as an arrow toward the waterfront so we followed it that way. First things were fairly quiet, but then as we got closer to the center of town by the waterfront things got more amd more vibrant until the street was crowded, lined with eateries, music was bumping, it was a whole thing.

We could have gotten almost any kind of food but we stuck to our original plan, found a place that more or less specialized in hot dogs, hot two hot dogs (well mine was a chorizo sausage), a margarita amd a mango juice for just under the 50 kilopesos ($12.50). There was a self serve fixings bar so i loaded mine up as directed amd it was indeed delicious.

Then we returned to our hotel. We were wishing we'd brought our cameras to document the epic street scene. Will certainly do so tomorrow!