Along the Caribbean coast
This is all on my phone, so bear with me if I make mistakes.
We are in Santa Marta, on day four of our Colombian trip together. Brandon has been in country for rather a few more days, with a side trip to Ecuador for good measure. I met him in Cartagena at a restaurant that we chose a few days before I arrived. I'm always amazed when we manage to communicate half a world away and find each other without difficulty.
Cartagena was a stunning introduction to Colombia. The old city, built largely in the 17th and 18th century, still stands within the walls built to protect the citizens from pirate attacks. We sat in the plaza at night in front of a church built in the colonial days, eating arepas and taking in locals smooching, hippie touristas playing guitar, and the occasional juggling unicyclist. By day, we walked along the walls of the fort, tried new and exciting fruits, and stuck our feet in the Caribbean.
Yesterday was largely spent getting to Santa Marta. The first bus was hot and cramped with no working A/C, blaring vallenato music, and broken seats (although still by no means the worst bus I've ever taken by a long shot). I do love my husband a lot, but traveling next to him for two and a half hours in seats sized for a petite Colombian girl instead of a large powerlifter is not my favorite thing in the world. The second bus was much more forgiving - the air con worked, and we each got our own seat.
Today was spent in Taganga, a nearby holiday spot with a gorgeous beach set in a cove between hills bright with bougainvillea, cactus, and lush green trees. We spent the day swimming in the ocean, sunning ourselves, and people watching. Coincidentally, two Dutch guys that Brandon had happened to befriend on the road last week turned up in the same beach as us. The backpacker world is an amazingly small world sometimes.
Had I not unwittingly donated about $30 US to the floor of our colectivo bus on the way in, it would have been a perfect day. Even still, we didn't let that faze us too much. Since we had no money except for bus fare, we headed back into Santa Marta in the afternoon. (In hindsight, it was a good move - both Brandon and I would have been in a world of sunburned pain if we had spent any longer on the beach.) Dinner was a fantastic crepes place (where the cooks blasted terrible 80's pop music, presumably specifically for us as we were the only clientele). After dinner, we found kittens in a plaza, watch the sun set over the ocean, and drank fresh juice from a street vendor in the mercado. Not a bad life.
Tomorrow is an excursion to Parque Nationale Tayrona, a national park renowned for its beaches and natural beauty. Hopefully, I'll find a good place to scatter my brother's ashes - this will be the first time that someone has taken his ashes to South America.
After Tayrona, we'll head back to Cartagena on the 12th and catch a flight back to Bogota - the bus would have been a 20-hour slog through the mountains. No thanks. We're hoping for a day in Bogota before boarding our flight back to the States on the 14th.
Hope all is well in LJ land!
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