Santa Marta

One of my goals for my time in Colombia is to travel throughout the country as much as I can. I love being in Bucaramanga, but there's so many beautiful and diverse places to visit in Colombia. For my first short trip out of BGA, I went to Santa Marta with two of the other Fulbrighters placed in my city. Other than the fact that it's on the coast, I didn't really know much of anything about this city, but I loved visiting it. Santa Marta is a relatively small city on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. It was the first Spanish colonial settlement in what is now Colombia, and it also had (and still has) a significant indigenous population. Santa Marta is located by the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and there's also many beaches throughout the city and surrounding area.

The first part of our trip was spent at Tayrona National Natural Park, a protected area that is incredibly biodiverse. We stayed at a resort just outside the park for the first two nights. Our cabin was surrounded by lush green foliage and the sounds of birds (and at night, frogs). The hotel was beautiful and was a big change from the past few months spent in the city. When we arrived at the hotel though, it was already dark, so we couldn't fully see if there were any bugs hiding in our room. As we were settling in, we saw a humongous bug (a praying mantis is our best guess) hanging out on the wall of the cabin. While two of us freaked out, one person in the group (it was not me) managed to bring the insect outside, and we all unanimously decided to sleep in the same bed to protect ourselves from other uninvited guests.

Our first full day of the trip was spent hiking in Parque Tayrona. The entrance was a ten minute walk from our hotel. Once we had paid our entrance fees, we took a bus further into the park where we started the hike! It was around a two hour hike to the first beach where you are allowed to swim. The hike was through the jungle, and we got to see many different types of plants and luckily we didn't see too many huge insects or snakes (the one tiny snake we saw has been blocked from my memory, so let's move on). One of the highlights of the hike was definitely seeing a group of monkeys hanging out in some trees right off the path.

The first few beaches we saw on the hike are not safe for swimming because of how strong the current is there. By the time we got to a beach where we could swim, it was raining a bit, so we only swam for a few minutes. The water was really clear and felt warm but refreshing after our long hike. The beauty of the park cannot be overstated. From the beaches to the green trees and the mountains, every part of the hike had something new to look at and enjoy. Although the trail was muddy at times, overall it was really well-maintained and easy to hike, even with all the uphill parts. There were enough people also hiking that it felt safe, but there weren't so many people that the peacefulness of the park was disturbed.

After our day of hiking, we all felt like relaxing as much as possible. We spent the rest of Friday and Saturday morning enjoying the food and the pools at our resort. After an incident with a lockbox (don't put your passport in a locked box unless you know how to open it), we headed toward Santa Marta for the second half of our trip!

When we got to the hotel, it had been raining for a while, but we were all looking forward to lunch, so we decided to head out with umbrellas to brave the downpour. When we went around the block from the hotel, we realized that it had rained so much in such a short amount of time that we weren't able to cross the street. We didn't think it would be as bad a few streets over, so we decided to see if we could find a taxi to take us to the restaurant. The taxi made it to the restaurant, but as the 5 minute trip turned into a 20 minute one, we realized we had probably made a mistake. It was like there was a river flowing down every street, reaching nearly all the way up to the sidewalks. We were stuck at the restaurant for a few hours, but luckily, it was probably the best food I've eaten so far in Colombia.

Since we braved a rainstorm for the food (and it was amazing), our food from the Pad Masala restaurant:

The rest of our time in Santa Marta was spent either at the hotel's pool, which had a view overlooking the bay, eating at restaurants, or enjoying the beach. We went to a public beach in Taganga, which is a small fishing town about 15 minutes from the historic center of Santa Marta. The beach was packed full of people, especially kids, enjoying the sunshine and the warm water.