It has been a while since I last wrote but this post might be long, you have been warned. Where to start…I was meant to leave Taganga shortly after the trek was over and was planning to go toMedellinand its surroundings, down toCaliandPopayanto meet a friend and head toEcuador. Finally, the two awesome Scottish ladies (known as Sophie and Rose) I became friends with during the trek came to Taganga. They decided to do their diving course, and so I was given two free dives for referring them to the school I had gone to. So I stayed an extra two days for that, because one of the days no one had booked any dives. I was meant to leave on Friday, but I didn’t really want to, and was convinced to stay mainly because there were some parties, lives bands scheduled for the weekend. I was in a good place with great people, why leave right away and bus alone on a Friday or Saturday night? Sooooooooooo the weekend was great! Unfortunately, there was one accident. At about4amon Saturday night, as a few of us were walking back to our hostel, Sophie had the bag with a few things and the camera. Someone ran up behind her and put a gun to her head and wanted the stuff from the bag. So she gave it and he ran off. Luckily, no one got hurt although it was freakin scary and everyone was shocked. Oh and let me also mention: that it was my camera. Anyone who knows me, knows that this is maybe the sixth one that is either broken or robbed. So that is it for now, if I buy one, I buy one but I will not be looking for one. After being in Taganga for a while and always having fun there, it kind of ruined the vibe for me, not going to lie. After an awesome weekend, that was my cue to go.
Sophie, Rose and I decided to head a little further north east to the Guajira province, to some nice beaches in a little place called Palomino. We left Monday (Sept.26th) and met up with Raimer, a german-colombian whom I had contacted through couchsurfing and was meant to stay with inMedellin. His university was still on strike so he went back to his parents’ house nearSanta Marta. We all took the bus to Palomino, which is a small village and is a 7 minute walk from the beach, which is beautiful and deserted. We stayed at a little camping/hammock place which was 4$ a night and we used the kitchen and the owners were very sweet. On our last morning they gave us papaya and it was probably the biggest one I have ever seen! I usually don’t really like papaya, it has a weird taste…but this one was really good and sweet. We had the place basically to ourselves, and the beach as well. At night, the stars were amazing; and I got to see a TON of shooting stars!
Raimer left on the Tuesday because it was his father’s birthday, but he invited us over to his farm. So Wednesday we went to meet him and visited the 2 hectare fish farm which was really nice, ponds, water lilies, fish and many plants. We were really lucky to have fresh tilapia Raimer caught for lunch, yummm! We stayed in the guest house and made him dinner, listened to music, made some bracelets and danced! The next day we went to his father’s biological reserve. To get there we took the bus on the way toSanta Marta, got off at this place called Bonda; then called these guys on motocycles, “motortaxis”, and drove about 40mins and walked another 15min to arrive in what could be called a natural paradise. We did not visit all 30 hectares (!) of the reserve, but we got to see many beautiful things: medicinal plant garden, butterfly area, bores, macaws, crocodiles, turtles and these hugeeeee fish called arapaima. We hung out by the river, he showed us how they produce electricity with the water from the dams annnnnnnnnnnnnddd, we spend the night in a TREEHOUSE. Yes, a house high up in a tree. The kind every kid dreams of! Unfortunately the week flew by, and Friday came and we had to get back to Taganga because Cosima and I bought a flight for Saturday Oct. 1rst, so today.
We partied HARD last night. Everyone at the hostel was hanging out, we made dinner but only ate at about 10h30pm. Then headed off to the beach, then to a party and by the time we were done all that it was nearly six. We sat at the beach, watched the sun rise while some played music. At that point, we did not go to bed because we had to leave Taganga at about 7h30 to take a bus to Santa Marta and then to the next town, Barranquilla, to fly out to Bogota and then to Pasto. The bus rides and flights today have never been so short, we just passed out. From the airport, we took about a 45 minute taxi drive through the mountains into the city ofPasto. It is way bigger than we expected, with about 1 million habitants at an altitude of 2600m. We are now pretty tired and will definitely enjoy our beds tonight.
La chola 