Day 210, 211, 212 - Santa Marta & Taganga, Colombia - Sunday 13th, Monday 14th, Tuesday 15th May 2012

We arrived into Santa Marta at 10am chilled to the bone - the air con on the bus was ridiculously cold. The taxi dropped us to the road that our hotel was supposedly on but after searching for nearly an hour, backpacks on and sweating from the sudden change of climate to baking hot, we gave up and decided to have some breakfast on the sea front. After eating Ad went off in search again and eventually discovered that the address was wrong! Anyway, with the right address in hand, we got to Casa Verda, our mini splurge, and were not disappointed. The place was beautiful and our room lovely; we quickly settled down and spent a few hours making the use of our own private bathroom - trimming, shaving, and all the usual everyday things that are difficult when sharing single bathrooms with other people. The staff were so friendly and the man, who spoke little English, even got up the google translate webpage so we could chat!

Come late afternoon we went for a wonder around, saw the beach which wasn't that nice and was very busy and then headed to a nice little place for dinner. The food was amazing!!! After filling ourselves nicely we headed back to the shelter of our posh place to get our money's worth!

After a yummy breakfast we checked out and caught a taxi to Taganga - a little fishing village just 10 minutes on from Santa Marta. The place is set around a little bay and has a nice vibe to it - people playing Caribbean music in the streets and lots of places to eat and drink. We dropped off our bags at our new place and headed to the other end of the beach where we found a Rastafarian bar which served good juices and cold beer - perfect. We sat there for hours, chatting with the owner and an Austrian girl and watching the guys playing football on the beach and eventually the sunset. Lazily we decided not to move a muscle and instead also eat at the bar - the owner cooked us up some great tasting fish, prawns and fried plantain. We happily ate our dinner, drank our beers and eventually headed back to our (madly hot - no air con) room.

We woke this morning in a paddle of sweat!! The two fans we had in the room were only successful at blowing around lots of hot air around. I never thought that Colombia would be sooo hot, especially after arriving in cold, cold Bogota. After a snooze we eventually swam out of our bed and down the beach for a tasty breakfast at casa Holland; Soph had the hot crepe with fruit and I had the eggs on toast. We then went for a walk around the small town before deciding to head over the other side of the hill to the hidden beach of Playa Grande. We walked to the far end of our beach, past all the locals selling everything from cotton bags to cocaine, and up the winding mud stairs which lead over the hill. After about ten minutes we noticed two young guys dressed in green and sitting outside a very small concrete building (which only had three walls left standing) with guns… They were apparently the 'mountain boarder police' however I didn't see the word police written on their green uniforms?! After a tame bag search we were told we could continue to the beach but not to take or buy drugs; I was a bit worried as my hay fever was playing up and I needed a zirtek, but we followed there sound advice! Once we were there the beach was so much nicer, the water was crystal clear and warm, and the beach was tucked into a bay so the water was really calm too. It was quite empty apart from a young Colombia girl and her two friends who were playing a guitar and singing in Spanish. It was pretty romantic so we just lay on the white sand, listening to this young Colombia girl sing whilst taking the occasional dip in the sea!! Just before sunset we headed back over the hill as neither of us fancied the walk in the dark and certainly not the bag search as I was still packing the zirtek! Back at the hotel we cleaned up and watched sunset with a Colombia Mojito cocktail on main beach and dinner after - great day!!!