The Coast of Colombia

We spent our first night on the coast in Santa Marta after our long journey from San Gil. We went out for dinner that night for pizza and gelato, and were amazed at the liveliness of the city. There were buskers everywhere, one group were absolutely incredible, the crowd started salsa dancing (or Colombian equivalent) with their partners and friends.

Our next stop was Minca, about 30 minutes inland from Santa Marta, surrounded by jungle. We did a lot of swimming in the pool, some morning bird spotting walks, and we hired a motorbike and visited 3 waterfall spots to swim in.

The motorbikes threw a bit of excitement into our trip, particularly for me clutching on to Lucas from the back of his motorbike, sorry mum and dad. We went with 4 others, both other drivers did motorcross so were a little bit more confident than me and Lucas. We survived though!

Next we headed to the coast, in between Palomino and Tayrona National Park. We chose Lote 10 Glamping as a place we thought would have good wifi for my interview, and because it was recommended by Lachie and Emma. It was such a lovely little escape and felt like a holiday within a holiday. Because there are no cafes/restaurants on the coast, you have to eat all meals at the accommodation. 

Each morning for me consisted of a beach walk, followed by many cold showers during the day, and the rest of the time relaxing in the hammocks or drinking yum drinks (coconut lemonadas will forever be in my heart). It made it very hard to leave for El Rio Hostel. 

We lined up visiting El Rio Hostel with one of their party nights. El Rio Hostel was pretty cool how it backed on to the river, with beach volleyball, 3 bars, a wood fired pizza restaurant, a bakery, and much more. Once you were there there was no reason to leave.

Basically all we did at El Rio was swim in the river, eat, and drink. There were DJs playing from 4pm onwards so it was an entertaining night, meeting some cool people. 

After El Rio Hostel we headed to Journey Hostel just down the road (all the hostels we stayed in were all within 30 minutes of each other, but all varied so much). Journey hostel was in land a bit, surrounded by jungle and near the national park. It was a great place to just relax at, swim in the pool, and again have nice food and drinks. We also met some cool people here as it was very social with family dinners every night and a quiz one of the nights. Our team did great, we didn’t come last as we thought we would!!

One morning myself, Lucas, Veronica (from Austria) and Harri (from UK) went and did the ‘Monkey Trail’. This was a 6km circuit that took us across a river, through some jungle, and along the beach. It doesn’t sound like much, but we saw an endless amount of wildlife including, would you believe, monkeys and caiman. 

Usually travellers use Journey Hostel as a base for when they are exploring Tayrona National Park. Unfortunately we missed out on the park since it was closed for the full 2 weeks we were there (cultural reasons). 

Our next and final stop on the coast before Cartagena was back to the beach, a few hundred metres from Lote 10 Glamping. We changed it up and decided to stay at a larger accomodation which had a pool. We had a lovely cocktail, main and dessert on the beach one of the nights (I say this like it wasn’t an every day occurrence haha..). 

Our final stop in Colombia, and on our whole trip, was Cartagena! I think it was actually a great last stop as it was nice and relaxing, had more great food, and the culture and city is so vibrant. Exactly as you would imagine Colombia to be like. 

We didn’t do a whole heap, just wondered Getsemani and the walled city. We did a free walking tour of the walled city but we couldn’t actually hear much because the group was so big, and city so loud. We also made sure we had one last arepa!

This concludes our South America travels! We are currently on our flight to Vancouver, eating our plane dinner which was actually unexpectedly quite nice. Next stop Vancouver!!

I will do one more SA blog post which is going to be a little overview of the whole trip. I think it will be quite fun reflecting on the trip as a whole, especially thinking back to Argentina and Chile which feel like a lifetime ago.