Playa Blanca
Thursday, August 31st - our hotel here in Santa Marta is called "Soy Local" (I am Local), but the way i pronounce "Local," the English way, sounds more like Loco (crazy), so any time someone asks where we're staying it sounds like I'm saying "i am crazy."
Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs (decent), cold toast (just like the other place??), not-quite-ripe cantaloupe amd watermelon, amd, a first for the hotels of this trip, genuinely freshly squeezed orange juice.
Our local tour booking lady (whom our driver put us in contact with (who himself our last hotel had set us up with)) came to our hotel at around 9:30 to pick us up. We proceeded to a city beach. Where our tour lady got us set up for the day with the necessary tickets for things, coded into QR codes on wristbands. Amd then she sent us off on a water taxi to the next cove over, which doesn't appear to have any land connection to anywhere else.
I felt a bit unimpressed at first, it seemed to be "just a beach" amd we'd seen plenty of those lately.
But the immediate highlight was the tower on the ridge on one side and the lines running to it, high across the bay, from the other side! A zipline across the bay!
We did that first. That consisted of climbing the stairs to the lower station, where they got us all hooked up amd then we rode the zipline literally amd figuratively backwards as they pulled us across to the higher station. That trip we made tethered together, but from there they dispatched first Cristina amd then myself. It was very fun, we were at quite a height at that end. Somehow Cristina seemed to go faster than me amd hit the hanging pads at the terminal end hard, me i actually came to a stop before the end amd they had to throw a rope out to me amd drag me in.
Unfortunately couldn't get any pictures though Cristina got a video of me coming down.
Then we went amd swam in the water. Since this place, unlike Rosario, was crowded with people, i pretty much never let my eyes off our stuff or got very far from it, amd if anyone seemed to be lingering near it I'd immediately start approaching like an alligator ready to strike.
The water was very clear amd a nice temperature, though i still would have dismissed it all as "not as good as Rosario" except Cristina remarked a number of times that it was a really nice beach so I guess it was. Me i just don't like people 🙃
Returned to the city beach by water taxi, took taxi to the "gold museum" which was a museum containing pre Colombian artifacts, as well as information on local history until the present day. I found it all very interesting amd was disappointed we were kicked out at five after we'd been there about an hour.
Now we found ourselves by a square bordering on the city bay (the city beach we departed from was in a neighboring bay. We thought about walking back to our hotel but decided to call our cab back because the way back was 750m through narrow alley like streets that maybe could be dangerous.
We had half an hour to kill waiting for the taxi but it was pleasant by the seaside. Two general fashion observations: (1) i thought this was just an Australia thing but more recently I've seen it everywhere else amd it seems to have now become the pervasive women's fashion: why do women wear old man pants now? All my life i thought it was a given that everyone but old men wear their pants at their hips amd only ridiculous old men wear their pants at or above their friggen belly buttons. But now all the women seem to be doing it amd personally i think it's the fashion of the present decade that will look ridiculous in future ones. Second observation is that women now seem to more commonly stick their phone in their front waistband like a gun than their pocket. I suppose it's due to the current large size of phones. I wonder if it's somehow related to the high waists.
Anyway our taxi came took us back to our hotel. We relaxed for an hour or two amd then Cristina said "let's go for perro calientes!" I'd seen pictures of Venezuelan hot dogs, absolutely heaped with fixins, amd was eager to try one (assuming they're similar here). By now it was dark out so we were being bolder than usual venturing out. We left both our phones amd only took 50 kilopesos with us.
The narrow street the hotel is on continues straight as an arrow toward the waterfront so we followed it that way. First things were fairly quiet, but then as we got closer to the center of town by the waterfront things got more amd more vibrant until the street was crowded, lined with eateries, music was bumping, it was a whole thing.
We could have gotten almost any kind of food but we stuck to our original plan, found a place that more or less specialized in hot dogs, hot two hot dogs (well mine was a chorizo sausage), a margarita amd a mango juice for just under the 50 kilopesos ($12.50). There was a self serve fixings bar so i loaded mine up as directed amd it was indeed delicious.
Then we returned to our hotel. We were wishing we'd brought our cameras to document the epic street scene. Will certainly do so tomorrow!
Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs (decent), cold toast (just like the other place??), not-quite-ripe cantaloupe amd watermelon, amd, a first for the hotels of this trip, genuinely freshly squeezed orange juice.
Our local tour booking lady (whom our driver put us in contact with (who himself our last hotel had set us up with)) came to our hotel at around 9:30 to pick us up. We proceeded to a city beach. Where our tour lady got us set up for the day with the necessary tickets for things, coded into QR codes on wristbands. Amd then she sent us off on a water taxi to the next cove over, which doesn't appear to have any land connection to anywhere else.
I felt a bit unimpressed at first, it seemed to be "just a beach" amd we'd seen plenty of those lately.
But the immediate highlight was the tower on the ridge on one side and the lines running to it, high across the bay, from the other side! A zipline across the bay!
We did that first. That consisted of climbing the stairs to the lower station, where they got us all hooked up amd then we rode the zipline literally amd figuratively backwards as they pulled us across to the higher station. That trip we made tethered together, but from there they dispatched first Cristina amd then myself. It was very fun, we were at quite a height at that end. Somehow Cristina seemed to go faster than me amd hit the hanging pads at the terminal end hard, me i actually came to a stop before the end amd they had to throw a rope out to me amd drag me in.
Unfortunately couldn't get any pictures though Cristina got a video of me coming down.
Then we went amd swam in the water. Since this place, unlike Rosario, was crowded with people, i pretty much never let my eyes off our stuff or got very far from it, amd if anyone seemed to be lingering near it I'd immediately start approaching like an alligator ready to strike.
The water was very clear amd a nice temperature, though i still would have dismissed it all as "not as good as Rosario" except Cristina remarked a number of times that it was a really nice beach so I guess it was. Me i just don't like people 🙃
Returned to the city beach by water taxi, took taxi to the "gold museum" which was a museum containing pre Colombian artifacts, as well as information on local history until the present day. I found it all very interesting amd was disappointed we were kicked out at five after we'd been there about an hour.
Now we found ourselves by a square bordering on the city bay (the city beach we departed from was in a neighboring bay. We thought about walking back to our hotel but decided to call our cab back because the way back was 750m through narrow alley like streets that maybe could be dangerous.
We had half an hour to kill waiting for the taxi but it was pleasant by the seaside. Two general fashion observations: (1) i thought this was just an Australia thing but more recently I've seen it everywhere else amd it seems to have now become the pervasive women's fashion: why do women wear old man pants now? All my life i thought it was a given that everyone but old men wear their pants at their hips amd only ridiculous old men wear their pants at or above their friggen belly buttons. But now all the women seem to be doing it amd personally i think it's the fashion of the present decade that will look ridiculous in future ones. Second observation is that women now seem to more commonly stick their phone in their front waistband like a gun than their pocket. I suppose it's due to the current large size of phones. I wonder if it's somehow related to the high waists.
Anyway our taxi came took us back to our hotel. We relaxed for an hour or two amd then Cristina said "let's go for perro calientes!" I'd seen pictures of Venezuelan hot dogs, absolutely heaped with fixins, amd was eager to try one (assuming they're similar here). By now it was dark out so we were being bolder than usual venturing out. We left both our phones amd only took 50 kilopesos with us.
The narrow street the hotel is on continues straight as an arrow toward the waterfront so we followed it that way. First things were fairly quiet, but then as we got closer to the center of town by the waterfront things got more amd more vibrant until the street was crowded, lined with eateries, music was bumping, it was a whole thing.
We could have gotten almost any kind of food but we stuck to our original plan, found a place that more or less specialized in hot dogs, hot two hot dogs (well mine was a chorizo sausage), a margarita amd a mango juice for just under the 50 kilopesos ($12.50). There was a self serve fixings bar so i loaded mine up as directed amd it was indeed delicious.
Then we returned to our hotel. We were wishing we'd brought our cameras to document the epic street scene. Will certainly do so tomorrow!