From Bogota, I made the 20 hour journey to the northern coast. The day was spent hopping from one little colonial town to the next in my climb north. Some of these little towns are so picture perfect and adorable that it´s hard to not think that they were created just for tourists. Most of them with the exception of Villa de Leyva, never get tourists though so I must accept the fact that they really just look like this. Everywhere you look are gorgeous 16th century buildings with whitewashed walls with huge, wooden doors that lead to courtyards heaving with buganvilias. But like all beautiful places I have seen on this journey, I had to keep on truckin´, so a night bus to Santa Marta completed the almost 24 hour journey.
From Santa Marta, straight to Taganga where I splurged on a $17 a night room strictly based on the fact that it had a fan and more importantly, a pool. Even growing up through Florida summers couldn´t prepare me for the heat of Northern Colombia. The stifling, suffocating heat has everyone on the beach feeling like used matches. The only relief comes from sitting in liquid, so from the ocean to the pool I commuted, only stopping for fresh smoothies and amazing fish. I had great meals in the shade of a lady´s hut on the beach. For $3, I feasted on fish soup, an entire grilled and very spicy fish, cooled down with sweet coconut rice, beans and fried plantains. The sassy little lady, usually sipping rum and play fighting with her sisters was an added bonus.
A day in Taganga was enough so I headed to Parque Tayrona, a pristine beach about an hour and a half away. From the park entrance you can either rent a horse or hike the 2 hours to the first beach. The journey is steamy and tiring but is a great way to earn your privelige to be on such a lovely beach. When the palms part on the last leg of the trek and you see the crystal clear waters and white sand, it all makes sense. But who wants to settle for the first beach when there are more, less populated ones to discover? So another 45 minutes of trekking through forests with cicadas and howler monkeys competing in vocal ability. I also stopped to buy a coconut water from two Kogi Indian children who live up in the mountains of the park. Dressed in tatters with no other possesions besides coconuts and a machete, these kids took turns hacking open the fruit for me. Watching these skilled little kids weild that machete really makes you question the capability of children and how much we potentially limit that with safety concerns.
Anyway, there is nothing to do in Parque Tayrona except for eat, sleep, read and swim and I indulged in all but the eating since the only game in town serves gross and ridiculously overpriced food. The options for sleeping are tent or hammock so I chose hammock thinking it would be cooler. Now, falling asleep in a hammock while ocean breezes gently rock you to sleep is an undoubtedly luxurious feeling. Waking up a few hours later, however, is not. Hammocks are for napping, not a full night´s rest. I cocooned myself in my sheet and tried hard to tough it out as things flew by and went bump in the night. I got up to pee in the pitch darkness of the campgrounds and while doing my business behind a palm tree had the shit scared out of me (not literally) by a white horse, roaming through to graze. That same horse woke me up first thing in the morning looking a lot less ghostly in the daylight. A little too outdoorsy for me but an experience nonetheless.
From there, Cartagena which is even hotter than the others but with a gross beach and no breeze. The old city is absolutely spectacular but very touristy. I opted to spend my time with a 20 year old drug dealer who came to town for the weekend from Medellin to make some money to support his 6 year old! He introduced me to the really nice hookers (mostly trannies) working the block and to the cyclical nature of “cocaine tourism”…
A dealer sells coke to a gringo. Gringo walks away and dealer finds or calls a cop and gives a description of the gringo. The cop then finds said gringo, frisks him and finds the coke. He takes the coke, demands a bribe and then lets the gringo go. Cop returns to the dealer, gives him the drugs and a cut of the bribe money. If the cops dont find the drugs, they plant them anyway so its really a loose, loose situation there. It´s so hot and expensive in Cartagena so I was fine with just spending the two nights there drinking cold beers on the stoop of the hotel and taking it all in.
