Parque Tayrona Nacional

Tayrona National Park is about an hour out of Santa Marta. We took the collectivo to the front of the park and then walked into the park and paid our entrance fee. We were told that it was best to take one of the local cars from the front entrance to Canaveral. Glad we took every ones advise. It was a long ways in. As it was; once we were dropped off we then had a 2 hour hike into the park. We had spoken to several backpackers who had done this trek and said it was a fairly easy walk in. No problem. We like to walk. It was shady and we followed the track. That is the last time I listen to 20 yr backpackers. I had thought I was in some kind of shape but that was a grueling 2+ hour hike in. We were climbing over boulders and the walk was a hike of a bit of difficulty. I was hating it. In my mind; I was going over in my head which one of my friends or family member would actually enjoy this. I came up with one name. ONE! And that's my crazy cousin, Tunisia. She's a triathlete and marathon runner and young. Other than that I couldn't think of anyone. Bob & I were the oldest on this path. Everyone was a good 15-18 years younger. I'm thinking what in the heck are we doing? Just so we can say we slept in a hammock on the beach. Good grief! Looking back now, I had to apologize to Bob. By the time we reached our final destination; I was dehydrated, hungry, angry and had that possessed tone in my voice. Bob was trying to get me to eat our lunch on the beach which required us to walk a few more yards. I was done. I didn't have it in me to walk few more yards. Bob was trying to get me to eat but I was so mean. I'm sorry Bob! Above is the path which we walked. The small black line is the highway we traveled via collectivo. We walked from the far right to the far left. Which was the 2+ hour hike in. The terrain was hilly and some places were a little steep.

Bob doesn't like his picture taken but I needed a break so I used him so I could catch my breath.

The path you see behind was the easy part. I could have done that all day long. Once we got to our destination, ate and re hydrated...I finally started to enjoy our surroundings. It was beautiful.

We saw a nice sunset in the horizon.

En route to Playa Cabo San Juan where we camped out; we walked thru several beautiful beaches. As I had mentioned before we were dropped off in Canaveral by van and walked to Arrifices. Arrifices has a nice beach but you can't swim in the ocean due to strong riptides. The Eco-cabanas in this area were very expensive and but were done nicely. I wouldn't have mind staying here except I didn't like the idea of not being able to cool off in the ocean. The crowd was our age and enjoyed a much nicer accomodation. From Arrecifies we passed La Piscina beach. This is a natural swimming hole. The water was calm and clear. The area here is just for swimming and hanging out. No camping facilities. And then finally El Cabo. This area is where we found tons of campers, the water was very refreshing and they had a restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. The bathroom was primitive but clean and the showers were outdoors. We were assigned our hammocks and we got settled in. What was surprising to us was that the hammocks were clean. They were freshly washed when got them. That was cool.

The thatched roof housed about 20 hammocks and the restaurant. We were told it was going to be noisy in the evenings while trying to sleep. It was a party scene in other words. We didn't have a choice. By the time we arrived to the campgrounds it was almost totally booked. Do you know how upset I would have been if we had gotten there and no hammocks were available. Don't even want to think about. And I'm sure Bob doesn't either.

Believe it or not; I was starting to feel ill. I didn't have an appetite for dinner and I was ready to crash early. Poor Bob, he had to deal with me gripping all the way in and now I was a party pooper. I was exhausted.

Bob was a trooper though. He came to lay down in his hammock while I went to sleep. He had his cocktails and read before he finally fell asleep. We were told correctly; it was loud. We had never been around a bunch of Israelis before and this campground was full of them. I never bad mouthed a language before but if I don't hear it again will be fine with me. Their language sounds like they are hacking up a luegy. It sounds horrible.

We had intentions of renting a hammock up on the hill but we had gotten to the park too late in the day. It would have been quieter with a hell of a view but it too was sold out. I'm sure it was cold up there too. We were rather cool where we were sleeping. The breeze was constant all night long. Can't complain about that. Bugs were minimal.

This is the beach at La Piscina. The next day when I finally had energy to move we did walk 20 mins to La Piscina and checked it out. The water was clear, cool and calm. We hung out for about an hour before jumping on some horses back out of the park. There was no way I was walking back out.

I guess now we can say we did that. Sleep overnight in a hammock! I won't do that again until we open our bar in Guanaja.

We miss you guys! Bonnie & Bob

Taganga / Santa Marta Colombia part 2

How's everyone doing? I promised you guys some pics so here they are. Plus, I have a lot of catching up to do. We've been moving fiercely thru Colombia and having a blast. But before we get into all that. I'm so excited to let everyone know that people are reading my blog. I'm not talking about our family and friends but folks that are doing some research on traveling to the areas we're traveling. They are finding my blog on the internet and prompting questions. I love it. With that being said, here's my disclaimer. I'm not a professional writer. In fact, I blog late at night and more than likely have had a few cocktails. My intent here was to keep my family & friends informed of our whereabouts and post pictures. So, please don't criticize my grammar or writing techniques. Now, if anyone has questions about the places to stay, things to do, traveling information between cities....I'll be more than happy to help out. I had blogged about Taganga and Santa Marta previously but here are some pictures. And since we do have some folks interested in traveling I'll try to be a little more detailed. I think its so cool others are reading this. We traveled to Taganga from Cartagena via Mar Sol. Mar Sol didn't have a great website but we learned about them while in Cartagena. Most of the travel agents have their number and can set anyone up for door pickup. They use a 15 passenger van with A/C and very comfortable. Would highly recommend for shorter trips (less than 4 hours). Taganga was a small fishing village. We spent 5 days in this town and I'd say that was 3 days too long. Don't misunderstand; it was nice but we're a little older and would have like a little more to do. The crowd was a young "backpackers/hippie" party folks. It was safe and we had no problems to mentions. Always a good thing. There were 2 "hotels" and tons of "hostels". The hostels I can recommend are La Holanda, Bayview and Moramar but there are tons more to chose from. In the early evening all the boats were back on shore from the day of fishing. Each evening we would walk down to the beach for dinner and check out the entertainment. The flame throwers grew quite the crowd.

We did take a small boat around the cove to North Beach. We could have hiked but we chose to take the boat. I should say I chose to boat it. Billy Goat Bob would have preferred to hike. North beach was lined with small restaurants, lots of vendors walked up and down the beach and plenty of beach chairs to rent. We really enjoyed our afternoon here.

This is the beach access road. The beach would be on the left while most of the restaurants were on the right side.

Santa Marta. Now I would have enjoyed a few more days here. Santa Marta is quite a bit larger than Taganga and not a "tourist" area. They have beautiful beaches, casinos, malls, and mercados. We used the local bus and taxis to get around without problems. The only place we can recommend since we stayed here is Las Brisas Locas. It's located in the heart of el centro and 2 blocks from the beach. The brothers that own the place just opened up and still have a little construction going on but we enjoyed our stay and meeting them.

What I can't believe is that we took zero pictures in Santa Marta. What? Bob my photographer failed miserably. I'll get on to him about that. The pictures we do have were taken in Rodadero which is just outside of Santa Marta. We took the local bus and hung out for the day. This is an area of high rise condos and hotels. It was beautiful.

The beach was lined with Carpas "tent" and sillas "chairs" for rent.

All those high rises you see in the background are rooms available for daily rentals. One thing we learned in Colombia...If you plan to stay longer than 3 days; check out the apartments. They normally rent out cheaper than a hotel and have a lot more room to spread out in.

Tons of paddle boats available for rental too.

How is this for creativity? This was the cocktail cart. I loved it. Have your drink served up in a fresh coconut.

It was a little bit cloudy but we still enjoyed the sunset.

Hope you enjoyed!

Much love - B&B

Taganga / Santa Marta Colombia

Hello everyone! We've moved out of Cartagena and further north to a small fishing village called Taganga. We've actually been here for 3 days now and have enjoyed our time here for the most part. There's more English speaking tourist here than there were in Cartagena but the crowd here is younger and full of backpackers. It's what I would call a "hippie" town. It's been very crowded over the weekend due to Colombia's Independence Holiday. Party's going on all night w/loud music. Not really our thing we're deciding. We'll call it "maturing". The beach is very nice and the water is much clearer & colder here than Cartagena but it feels so good...it's very HOT here. Bob & I are up to 3 showers a day because we sweat so much from walking. We haven't done any tours yet. Bob's been deciding where he wants to lay his head each night. We've been here 3 days and we've stayed in 2 different hostels. Needless, to say I've been a little irritated. There are 2 "hotels" here while the rest are "hostels". The hostels are priced nicely and are very nice but none of them have A/C and can be a little louder than a hotel. Our 1st day here; we had no reservations but we had done a little homework on some of the hostels we were interested in. We had 5 places in mind and we would check each of them out for the best beds. Bob has a thing about beds. Anyway, I did mention it was a holiday weekend and everyplace we had on our list was booked. So, we spent all day carrying our luggage to find something with availability. We did find one and it was rather cute too called Bayview. Our 1st night there Bob was miserable. He said it was way too hot for him. So, we checked out the next day. We spent all day AGAIN looking for another place to stay. Our options were very limited since all the hostels and hotels were full. The hostel next door had availability so by the end of the day we decided to take it. We were in a nice big room but it was in the front by the lobby and it was loud. People came and went all hours and the lobby is a place for conversations. This didn't work out for us either. Bob got up early the next morning and ventured out for another hostel. We had been wanting to get into this one place called La Holanda; very nice place but it too was booked daily. The policy here is a little different. When we check in we don't need to tell them how long we plan to stay so, each hostel has no idea of availability till that day's check out (11:00 a.m.) So, we asked the owner here at Moramar if there was another room we could move into away from the lobby. Lucky for us; someone had just checked out and we moved towards the back. So, 3 beds in 3 nights.....Please let this work for Bob! Guess what my friends...we're still in the room. Woohoo! Other than that all is good. I gotta tell ya "high maintenance man and low budget is difficult". That's all I'm gonna say. We do plan to move to another city not far from here called Santa Marta. We went there today for a look and it's nice. It's a much bigger city, beautiful beach and a little more diversity. We'll be staying at La Brisa Loca for the next few nights (hopefully). And we do have reservations for a private room w/aircondition. http://www.labrisaloca.com/ We booked our Galapagos Island Cruise out of Ecuador. I'm so excited about this deal. Bob found it in his internet search and we jumped on it. They were running a special 2 for 1 and since we have nothing but time. We are able to be in Ecuador the week the special takes place. Here's the link of the boat we'll be boarding. Looks amazing. http://www.galapagosexcursions.net/galapagos_luxury_tours/nina_luxury_class_cruise/index.htm Nothing much going. Just kicking back and enjoying life's ventures. We'll stay in touch and hope everyone is doing well. Hugs! B&B

Cartagena City Tour

Before I get started with the City Tour blog. We'd like to thank Sandra Vidal for hooking us up with this gentleman. His name is Rafas con las Gafas. Rafael is his real name but they identify him with glasses. I never knew gafas meant glasses in Spanish. But I think it's a slang word here in Colombia. He was a fantastic recommendation for us. We booked all our tours with him and he was fabulous. If any of you ever travel to Cartagena....find this man! Everybody knows him but go to DeCameron All Inclusive Hotel in the BocasGrande area. Ask anyone there at the hotel or on the street. They will get you to him. Rafael was punctual, very thorough on the descriptions of the tours and check on us several times to make sure we had a good time. He spoke English very well and was extremely helpful.

Thanks,

Rafael!

NOW.....Cartagena has one of the most beautiful colonial towns we have seen so far. What's very different about Cartagena is the layout of the city. It's the 5th largest city in Colombia and peninsulas out which surrounds a large part of the city by water. The Colonial part is in the El Centro area but it's behind thick walls which were built in the 1600's. The wall around the city is 7 miles around and extremely thick used to protect against pirates back in the day. There was only one entrance into the "Walled Colonial City" and this entrance is called the Clock Tower. Now they have several entrances into this beautiful area.

Once inside the Walled Colonial City it was absolutely beautiful. So, clean and so many fancy restaurants, shopping, galleries, upscale hotels, and bars. This area is also known as an exclusive neighborhood. Most of the buildings have been restored and the streets are immaculate. We walked this area several times and loved it. If you don't want to walk; no problem....Chariots await you on every corner.

Bob's favorite time to visit this area was at night. It was very safe and tons of people everywhere. Just had a great vibe.

The church Cathedral

BocaGrande was the next largest tourist area. Here we enjoyed the beach,

the scenery of large hotels and condos, casinos, shopping and restaurants.

Aerial View

We also visited the Castillo de San Felipe Fort

built in 1657

This fort was so cool. There were narrow passageways. Cannons on all

the walls. Spectacular views of the city

We did do the City tour by an open air bus.

View from La Popa Hill

and

Home to the 17th Century

Santa Cruz Monastery

Which has been beautifully restored

Cartagena has water all around this city.

We had a very good time in this city. Lots to do, very cheap, safe and the people were very nice. The city was very easy to get around which we used the taxis ($3.00 USD all the time) or we walked everywhere.

The only disappointment we had was the water wasn't as blue as we've seen in the Caribbean. It was almost like lake water in Texas. About 4ft. visibility

We miss you guys!

Bob & Bonnie

Cartagena Volcano Mud Bath

The Volcano Mud Bath was spectacular. We had no idea what to expect. Bob had read a little bit about the tour but nothing major. Our shuttle picked us up at 9:00 a.m. and we'd be dropped back off around 3:00 p.m. A father and daughter from Medellin Colombia were part of our tour group as well. So, it was just the 4 of us plus our guide. We had an hour van ride to the volcano. Once we arrived we had a short walk to a small volcano that had a mud pool at the top.

A few steep stairs to climb, but it wasn't bad.

The view was nice once we made it to the top.

Large lagoons surrounded the volcano.

And Wha-la. The mud pool. Wasn't what I had envisioned but it was a mud pool. They say the pool contains 28 healing minerals. The guide rattled them all off in Spanish. Did I understand any of them? No! But who cares. This girl & boy could use a little healing.

Here goes. The mud is so soft and thick. It felt cool between my toes. The stairs were a little slippery but I managed to get in with out falling. That's a nice change.

Check out Bob! Nothing to it. He just jumped on in.

I think he really enjoyed it!

Can you believe of our group I was the only one who wanted a massage? Sign me up! As you can see I had a little difficulty relaxing at first. Relax, lay back and enjoy I was hearing the guy tell me. Am I going to sink? Nope, this stuff was thick. It was pretty wild.

While everyone swam in the mud. I had no problem relaxing during my massage in the corner.

This is what it feels like to a pig. Not bad! I truly enjoyed the experience.

We had so much fun playing in the mud. When a large tour group showed up; we all decided to call it quits and headed to the lagoon. The water was so refreshing. There are ladies who want to bathe us of course. Everyone looking to make a buck but we decided to dive in ourselves and wash off. We were able to wash most of the mud out of our hair, swimsuits and ears. After we dried off we boarded the van and drove 30 mins to the town of Boquilla for lunch.

This is a typical Colombian meal. Whole fried fish (we both love it prepared this way), white rice made w/coconut milk, Patacones (fried plantain), and salad. You know I'm a Mexican when I'm missing my tortillas and beans. Not a staple here in South America.

After lunch we enjoyed meeting our new friends and hung out under a huge Palapa.

Take care!

Bonnie & Bob