And now to commence my segment on the northern Caribbean coast! Again, bits and bobs were written on the day and the rest was written post-travels, so apologies for any confusion with tenses/lack of cohesion.
Tuesday 29th – so we arrived to the bus terminal in Cartagena at about 1pm (an hour or two later than planned), and I took a taxi straight to my hostel, through lots of heavy traffic. After dumping my stuff I walked around the entire centro histórico (incredibly beautiful colonial buildings) and bought a coconut on the street filled with its yummy water. Had some dinner in the only cheap traditional restaurant where I had a chat with the owner who told me about his life in Cartagena (where he moved to from Medellin). Got back to the hostel in the evening, and was about to have a shower when I saw a HUGE cockroach crawling along the floor! So naturally I ran out screaming and had to use a different bathroom. Had a beer and a chat with the guy working the night shift who told me about his life, and went to bed at about 12:30am.
Wednesday 30th – I wasn’t sure what to do today at first, whether to do something in Cartagena or go elsewhere; but since the historic centre is quite small so I had already seen all of it, and the majority of the city is poorly constructed residential areas, I decided eventually to take a bus and then a mototaxi (a ‘taxi’ which is really just a motorbike; I had a helmet but of course no biking leathers, yes parents I was fine but yes I was also pretty worried about injuring myself!!) to la Playa Blanca, on La Isla Barú. Right now I am sitting here typing this in my hammock on the white beach before the crystal blue and very calm sea, where I am going to spend the night. I have to keep reminding myself not to get carried away with how much time I spend in each place, as I don’t really have that much time to travel most of the north coast! Only two or so weeks! But this beach is really incredibly beautiful, even though it’s sometimes annoying that I have no running water/wifi/electricity apart from one hour when the sun goes down. Oh and rats chewed massive holes in my lovely tote bag overnight because I left a few bananas in there. Gross!
Thursday 31st – I decided to stay another night on la Playa Blanca since it’s so beautiful, and the rent of my hammock was a mere £4 a night. I woke up accidentally at about 6am and witnessed the sun rising, which was beautiful; at which point the food sellers started walking the beach and I bought egg arepas, watermelon and papaya. During the day I decided to pay for a boat ride to the Rosario islands, a collection of tiny islands about a 20-minute ride from where I was staying. I snorkelled around the coral reefs and saw loads of weird and wonderful fish! Returned to the beach, got an amazing 40-minute whole body massage from a local lady for about £8, chatted to loads of the locals and guys selling things on the beach, and the very hippie Argentinian couple who were pitching their tent on the sand near my hammock. Lovely chilled out day overall, though I did manage to get sunburnt, classic English style.
Friday 1st September – did a bit of swimming around the Playa Blanca, drove a jetski for the first time to another little coral reef off the Isla Barú and had a look at the fish with a snorkel, before showering, eating ‘pan de coco’ (coconut bread – delicious!) and getting my stuff together to catch the mototaxi back into Cartagena, where I then took a normal car taxi to the bus station. Having spoken a lot to the Spanish girl who ran my hostel, she had put me in contact with a man in Taganga (a tiny beach town on the outskirts of Santa Marta) who runs what I thought was just a normal hostel but is actually an Airbnb (I suppose it got lost in translation) and would give me a private room for only 20,000 pesos a night (i.e. ridiculously cheap, about £5.50). There was loads of traffic on the way to the station so I missed the 3pm bus I wanted to get by about 20 minutes and was told the next one was at 5pm, so was sitting around sweating all the liquid out of my body and with very little nutritional food on sale in the station. I arrived quite late to Santa Marta, so had to take a taxi from Santa Marta bus station to Taganga, where I met with José, my host for the weekend. He showed me the house and I played with his gorgeous spaniel Toby, before settling in for the night – I don’t know what it is about long journeys, but it just tires me out so much even though all I did was sit down!
Saturday 2nd – since José had no plans for the weekend he offered to show me some of the cool stuff around the area! We spent the day on la Playa Grande, where we had lunch and did some snorkelling, ate dinner at home and then drove to Santa Marta to check out the port and walk around the old town centre, had a drink in a bar that was playing reggaeton! Then we went back to Taganga as I was still really tired from the previous day. It’s also impossible not to wake up early in this extreme heat, so I couldn’t have had a lie in if I tried.
Sunday 3rd – we drove up to Minca, the cloud forest a little way into the Sierra Nevada mountains, and hiked up to the set of waterfalls with Toby. José initially was not in a very good mood as he received news in the morning that his friend in Cali was in a serious car accident, but we managed to have a nice time nonetheless. We went home and cooked there and just chatted – spending time with José really helped me practise my speaking skills! His English is very limited which I really appreciate haha, as it forces me to explain difficult things in Spanish rather than reverting to English.
Monday 4th – José left very early in the morning to go to work in Bogotá, so I decided to take his advice and do the mini diving course available at one of the dive centres on the seafront. I got there at about 9am and ask to join the group for the day, and immediately got on with the instructors there. Even though I did snorkelling on Isla Barú and at la Playa Grande, it was a shame as clearly a lot of the corals were bleached and there just weren’t that many to begin with. And of course I wasn’t able to go down very deep. But this was without doubt one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had! Being able to dive down and coexist with these creatures even for just 40 minutes at a time is just wonderful. You can easily find statistics on the biodiversity of coral reefs and how despite the fact they cover a mere 1% of the earth’s oceans, they contribute about 20% to the fauna and flora species – this was apparent even on the short dives I did! I loved it so much I decided to stay in Taganga until Friday in order to take the 3-day diving course (which also allowed me to pass the NAUI diving test and become a certified scuba diver)!
Tuesday 5th – started the 3-day diving course this morning, which involved learning about all the kit, diving theory and doing underwater exercises with the ventilators and mask. We did most of the boring stuff (!) today, and did proper dives again on the following days; but of course it was still lovely to just hang out in the sun and have a laugh with the instructors. I moved into the very basic hostel of the dive centre (where they have cockroaches!!) to stay until I left Taganga, as it was free since I was already paying the fees for the course.
Wednesday 6th – 2nd day of the diving course – did two dives today; the one in the morning was to a little shipwreck off the point of the bay, and the other to the other side of the bay. Like the first day, I saw lots of morays, a squid, sea urchins, these weird lizard things that run around on the sand of the seabed, and of course plenty of fish of all different colours; and on this day I actually witnessed my instructor Yarith spearing a lionfish with his harpoon! This was made into ceviche later on that day, which looked incredible but alas, I of course did not eat it. Lionfish are the only species of fish that they are allowed to catch, as they were introduced to the Caribbean by humans (I think?) and are affecting the populations of basically all other fish on the coral reefs.
Thursday 7th – final day of the diving course, and today we went to Tayrona national park for the day – totally beautiful. Completely secluded white sand beach, crystal clear blue waters with visibility for like 15 metres underwater, and there was absolutely no one else around! The corals started a mere 3 or so metres from the shore, so I could see them just from swimming around on the surface! Loads of tiny hermit crabs about ½ of the size of my little fingernail, countless species of fish swimming in shoals, and all the other things I listed before. I took the boat back to Taganga with a couple of the instructors (the others were staying on the beach all weekend as the bogotanos who started their courses that day were spending their whole course there!) where we had a few beers before I turned in for the night.
Friday 8th – took the bus from Taganga to Santa Marta, got off at the stop and walked to the bus station, wading though torrential rain and ridiculous puddles up to my knees which led a truck driver to take pity on me and give me a lift to the bus station. Took a coach to Palomino, where I stayed at a very nice ‘hostel’ which was basically a hotel, it was so nice. Palm trees all over the area, a swimming pool, gorgeous huts for dorm rooms. Had a walk down to the beach and a little swim, then went back up to lie by the pool and swim there. Then a storm came down at about 4pm and it didn’t stop raining for about 5 hours so just hung around the hostel, had some dinner there and got chatting to the Colombians working behind the bar. When it stopped raining and they finished their shifts, I ended up going out to a salsa/bachata bar with them and having a dance! It was a nice place to chill out, but really I didn’t think the town was that interesting, there wasn’t a lot to actually do or explore and the beach wasn’t nice enough to just hang out there all day (although I suppose now I am a little biased, having already been to what I consider not only the best beaches in Colombia but the best ones I’ve seen in my life). Maybe if I wasn’t travelling solo and had chosen a better hostel (where people weren’t there to just chill out) I wouldn’t have got bored so easily.
Saturday 9th – checked out of the hostel by about 11am and then took a bus from Palomino to Riohacha, the biggest city (though still small compared to what I’m used to) in the department of La Guajira. Had a walk along the sea front, which was pretty dead by the time I got there as it was nearly sunset, bought a small dinner at a stall there before going back to the hostel, as there wasn’t much else to do and not many people staying at the hostel. Caught up on Game of Thrones after avoiding the internet for so long in case of spoilers! And had an early night, ready for the next day.
Sunday 10th – I was able to leave the bulk of my belongings at the hostel for the next few days, thanks to the kind hostel owner, as I knew I wouldn’t need much of it and lugging it around in the extreme heat would have been a pain. I took a shared taxi at about 9am from the hostel in Riohacha to Uribia, then took a mototaxi on a little tour around the Manuare salt flats (still very cool, but not as impressive as I was expecting them to be) and the flamingos that migrate to Musichi at certain times of the year. The driver of the mototaxi actually wasn’t as good at Spanish as I was expecting, as he mostly speaks the language of the Wayuu people who live in the region since there aren’t many people of European/other foreign origin there. He then took me back to Uribia, and as I was getting off (on the wrong side of the motorbike) I badly burned the inside of my calf on the exhaust pipe of the bike; the wound of which did not heal into a proper scab (it was just open flesh and pus haha, probably because of the humid environment and the fact I couldn’t properly disinfect it for a few days after it happened) for 2 or 3 weeks, and the scar of which I still have about 2 months later. I got onto the big jeep taking about 15 people to Cabo de la Vela through the desert, which basically just bumped over a dirt track for about 2 hours; this really is the middle of nowhere. If someone had a heart attack or something out there they would definitely just die; I think the nearest proper hospital is in Riohacha. I got chatting to a lovely hippie Spanish couple sitting next to me in the jeep, who said I could borrow their hammock to sleep in while I stay on the beach in Cabo, as they would be using their tent! This was so nice, I only had to pay about £2 for the two nights I was there to the rasta guy who owned the kite surfing centre, and also the thatched hut roofs which kept us sheltered from the sun during the day and the tree trunk ‘poles’ of which I tied the hammock to. We ate dinner all together at one of the beach restaurants that was next to our pitch, and settled in for the night not long after as there were basically no lights and it was pitch black by about 7/8pm.
Monday 11th – spent the middle 4 or 5 hours of the day hidden in the shadows of my hut, as the sun was so strong I was afraid for my skin and could hardly function in the heat anyway. This was a shame, but I had a dip in the sea every now and then, played around with one of the indigenous kids throwing sand with the consistency of a sort of clay-mud at each other, and later in the afternoon I had a walk through Cabo exploring, and met a Mexican guy who was also travelling by himself. Had some beers with him and the Colombian guys (not sure why I found this strange but they were all from Cartagena? I wondered how they all ended up there) who ran some of the kite surfing centres, before going to bed by about 1am, as I had a verrrry early morning the next day!
Tuesday 12th – got up really early, around 5am, to get my stuff into a jeep and travel a long way to Punta Gallinas, the most northern point of the whole of South America! This required a 2 hour long jeep through the desert again, to Puerto Bolivár, where we took a speedboat for 2 hours to Punta Gallinas. So we arrived a little after 9am, at which point we had breakfast in the little covered ‘restaurant’ (it was just a 50m2 platform off the sand with a thatch roof over it to cover us from the sun). We were shown to our hammocks, and then I took a short walk through a bit of the desert with a German girl to see if we could find something other than sand and cacti (we didn’t), at which point it was too hot to continue and I could feel myself starting to burn, so we headed back to the camp. The other boats had arrived from Puerto Bolivár (we had been the first) and so we set off in jeeps to see the Punta Gallinas landmark, a few photo opportunities at different sand dunes and bays, and then headed to a gorgeous beach where there were about a hundred pelicans floating around. I started talking to a hilarious German couple, Olga and Felix, who were just a few years older than me, and we had a lot of laughs together than day; I recommended the diving course to them if they had never done it before, and they said they might make a detour to do it. The Wayuu people living there had brought a cool box of beers and water, which were gladly received at this point as it must have been 40-45 degrees. I got chatting to a lovely Brazilian man called Biano who was doing yoga on the beach and of whom I was very jealous (I am not at the point in my practice where I can do headstands or handstands haha), and sat with him and the German couple for dinner, which was a huge meal and delicious. Those who ate fish probably had the best lobster of their lives – along with all the trimmings of rice, patacones, salad and other things, they had two enormously fat lobsters caught that day each, for about £10. I was still very pleased with my meal, which was the same except instead of lobsters I had some delicious green lentils and a fried egg. We stayed until long into the night just chatting and looking at the stars – we could see the Milky Way so clearly, it felt like a weirdly spiritual transcendent experience.
Wednesday 13th – left Punta Gallinas really early in the morning (though I was tempted to stay longer just to be in peace and quiet and enjoy the wonderful beach, Biano had already been there for 2 days by the time I arrived), got on the boat at about 5am to Puerto Bolivár, where the jeeps were waiting to take people back to Cabo de la Vela. My jeep back to Uribia, as I was supposed to be going directly, did not arrive at all and I was worrying that I would be stranded in the desert alone with no internet or phone service…another driver offered me his spare seat in his jeep to go back to Cabo de la Vela for free, which obviously I greatly appreciated, but was really annoyed as that had added another hour or so to my journey. I found the same Wayuu lady I booked the trip with in Cabo, and had a go at her for not sending someone to pick me up, as I had paid extra to go directly to Uribia; she apologised and said that since I was the only person going to Uribia from the port that they would not be able to set me up with a private jeep, so she put me straight on another jeep from there going to Uribia. I was of course still very angry, but there wasn’t really anything to be done at that point and I was tired, so I appreciated that at least I was getting my own jeep back to Uribia and went straight to sleep. Once I arrived in Uribia, I took a shared taxi back to my hostel in Riohacha to have a shower (this was amazing! I hadn’t showered since Saturday!), collect my rucksack and get the bus to Santa Marta; where I then shared a taxi to Taganga. I arrived in Taganga at about 8/9pm and went straight to my hostel to get some much-needed sleep!
Thursday 14th – got down to the dive centre at around 8am ready for my final dive in the Tayrona national park! And the lovely German couple I met in Punta Gallinas had decided to come too, so I had friends in them and the dive instructors, it was great! It was the same setup as the previous Thursday; boat to the national park, where we spent the whole day and ate freshly cooked lunch right on the beach, with absolutely no other people around. These dives were particularly special as I saw a manta ray!! I tapped on my oxygen tank to get the attention of Michael, my instructor, and the other girl I was diving with, and they were also both over the moon about it; my instructor told me when we reached the surface that even he hadn’t seen one before as they usually stay far away from the divers, and he’s been working there for a year or two, diving nearly every day! I feel so lucky to have witnessed that. We got back to the dive centre at about 7pm, and I was really sad to say goodbye; Gabriela (the 11 year old daughter of the owner), who seemed to have taken quite a liking to me, was also upset that I had to leave haha. I rushed to the bus station in Santa Marta as I had arrived later than expected and didn’t have much time to get ready to leave, but managed to make the 8:30pm bus back to Medellin.
Friday 15th – the night bus was really late arriving to Medellin, so as soon as I got off the bus in the station (about 2pm) I went to buy my ticket to Guatapé as I didn’t make it there the last time I was in Medellin. I had just paid to put my rucksack in the storage area of the station when the people at the ticket desk started shouting for me, saying the bus was about to leave; I rushed to go through the security and get my bag scanned, and was just approaching the bay when they told me the bus had just left. I was understandably very gutted about this, but accepted that I would have only been able to spend about an hour there anyway, which just wouldn’t have been enough time to fully appreciate it and see all the landmarks there – so I have vowed to myself that I will be returning at some point in the future. I went to find my hostel, where I relaxed a bit and started chatting in Spanish to a German girl (whose English was surprisingly not very good) who had arrived a couple of days before and was looking for an apartment; she said that she was going to be living in Medellin for the next year as part of her university degree! I was obviously very jealous! We went to the supermarket to get some food (where I also ended up spending about 30,000 pesos on a pair of trousers).
Saturday 16th – ate almost an entire watermelon and some granadillas and bread for breakfast, before sadly saying goodbye to my hostel in Medellin and getting to the stop for the ‘colectivos’ (shared taxis to the airport). Luckily these taxis take an amazing route up and around the mountain, so I had some wonderful views of my favourite Colombian city as I said goodbye.
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