Erin & Regan's South American Adventure

Hola,

From Bogota we took a bus to Santa Marta (on the coast in the north of Colombia), the oldest city in Colombia.  As we boarded the bus we realised we had left our boots at the hostal.  As the bus tickets were so expensive (NZ$146) we decided to stay on the bus and sort it out via phone.  A lady on the bus very kindly lent us her cell phone and then refused to accept any payment for it.  The hostal located the boots and secured them for the night.  18 hours later we arrived in Santa Marta.

The beginning of the "boots saga"...

We called the next day and arranged to have the boots sent to us at Casa Familiar in Santa Marta.  2 days later the package arrived however instead of our boots we received a cheap nd nasty knife set... not so useful for a 6 day trek!  The hostal owner was kind enough to accompany us to the ServiEntrega office to inform them of the problem.  They very quickly decided it must have been a mixup and that they would sort it out and our boots would arrive in 5 days due to the holiday period over New Years.

As we couldn´t do the Ciudad Perdida (lost city) trek without them we decided to go to the beach - New Year´s at the beach, what a change!

The beach at Tayrona national is very popular with the locals.  There were not many gringos.  You have to walk for 45 mins to get to the beach - it is not possible to go by car, although you can hire horses. 

We slept in hammocks but somehow forgot to take a photo.... ooops.

The water is clear and quite warm (not a surprise being on the Caribbean coast).  There are some reefs which create safe places for swimming.  Otherwise the beaches are a bit like Piha but no one here is silly enough to try and swim there.  There are no life guards anywhere.

We met a father and son on holiday from Bogota (Bogota is cold as it is at altitude so every single person from Bogota goes to the beach over the holiday period).  They accompanied us on a walk to Pueblito - an indigenous village built at the same time as Ciudad Perdida.  Some indigenous people still live there.

A postcard shot of the coast as we descended.

After 2 nights we walked out and while waiting for the truck back to the road a nice couple (from Bogota - where else?) offered us a lift to the road.  Then as they were going back to Santa Marta they dropped us off at the bus station.  The air conditioning was heaven.

Our boots didn´t arrive - as we expected.  We went back to the office with Fabio (the very nice man from the hostal) and they said they would check for them again and would know the next day.

The next day arrived.  No boots.  We decided to buy new boots for Ciudad Perdida and sorted out some documentation to request reimbursement for the lost boots.  We left this with Fabio and went to Ciudad Perdida.  (It would appear that none of the women in Santa Marta do any kind of trekking as there were no boots, anywhere, for women so Erin got to wear shoes).