Santa Marta

Santa Marta is a great place to visit in order to enjoy the nearby beaches. It is also the place where the great liberator Simon Bolivar passed away on December 17, 1830.

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Parque Nacional Tayrona

We spent a day visiting Tayrona National Park, a park that has many gorgeous beaches with mountains and lush green jungle in the background. The park’s main entrance is located about a 45 minute drive east of Santa Marta. From the main entrance we took a colectivo (small van) to the first beach called Cañaveral. From there we had the option of either walking (one hour) or riding a horse (45 minutes) to reach the next beach, Arrecifes. We opted for the horses because it had rained the night before and were told that the path would be very muddy. I’m really thankful we did, otherwise we would have been ankle deep in mud in some areas of the path!

Arrecifes is one of the most beautiful beaches in the park, and the jungle comes right up to the coastline. However, the beach is not safe for swimming, and a sign at the entrance to the beach warns that over 200 people have drowned at Arrecifes.


Fortunately, there is a nice beach called La Piscina that is safe for swimming, located about a 40 minute hike from Arrecifes. The water at La Piscina was warm and the sand was very soft.

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Taganga and Playa Grande

Taganga is a small fishing village set in a little bay about a 15 minute drive from Santa Marta. Taganga is a fun, relaxed beach town full of backpackers with lots of little restaurants and kiosks along the beach serving delicious fresh fish and natural fruit juices.

On the way to Taganga our cab driver offered to stop at the Taganga mirador (lookout point) so that we could get a nice view of the town. The view was spectacular!


In Taganga we enjoyed walking along Carrera 1, the street parallel to the beach, and had some delicious robalo (snook fish) at a restaurant called Bitacora. After lunch we walked to the eastern end of the town where there is a path over a hill leading to the Playa Grande. Minh got some great photos of Playa Grande from the top of the hill. The walk to Playa Grande took us about 30 minutes. We then spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at Playa Grande and enjoying the ocean.

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La Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino

La Quinta is a 17th century hacienda (plantation) where Simon Bolivar spent his last days before dying of tuberculosis. The room where he passed away is on display, and many of the hacienda’s furnishings from the time of his death have been well preserved. La Quinta is also surrounded by nice gardens. We spent an afternoon exploring the Quinta and learning a bit about Bolivar’s final days.

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Where to stay in Santa Marta

Minh and I were not particularly impressed with the city of Santa Marta. We both found it to be rather dirty and a bit seedy. We were glad that we decided to stay in El Rodadero, a beach town located a 10 minute drive south of Santa Marta. El Rodadero is very clean, very safe, and full of Colombians on vacation. I didn’t see any other gringos there during our 4 nights in El Rodadero. We really liked our hotel, Hotel Betoma. The room was spacious, very clean, had a nice balcony, air-conditioning and hot water in the shower. And it was a bargain at $50 USD per night.

El Rodadero had some nice restaurants. We really enjoyed eating fresh fish at Pez Caribe, and were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the pizza at Pizzetta. We also found a cool little bar that played Latin, American and British rock. I can’t remember the name, but it’s located on the corner of Carrera 4 and Calle 9, across the street from Pizzetta. We drank Mojitos while listening to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Soundgarden and Metallica. The highlight for us was when the DJ played Don McLean’s American Pie. Yes, we are gringos.

Taganga also seemed to us like a fun and safe place to stay. Taganga has a lot of hostels with very low prices.

Cartagena

Cartagena is a beautiful city, and should not be missed during a trip to Colombia! Cartagena is famous for its colonial walled city and fortress, which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We really enjoyed exploring the narrow cobble-stone streets of the walled city and admiring the many plazas, churches and brightly painted buildings, many of which date back to the 16th and 17th centuries. We also strolled along the perimeter of the wall, which provided great views of the colonial city on one side and the Caribbean Sea on the other.

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We spent an afternoon visiting the Castillo San Felipe de Barajas, the largest Spanish fort built in the Americas, located about a 5 minute drive from the walled city. We enjoyed walking around the fort and its underground tunnels, but our favorite aspect of the fort was the great view it provides of Cartagena.



Playa Blanca

Our guidebook indicated, and friends in Bogota confirmed, that the beaches in Cartagena are not very nice. So we decided to spend the day at Playa Blanca, a beach on Isla Barú located 45 minutes by speed boat from Cartagena. The beach is gorgeous with white sand and turquoise waters. I recommend taking one of the speed boats that goes directly to Playa Blanca in the morning from the Muelle Turistico, the boat harbor located near the clock tower entrance to the walled city. The beach is very quiet, secluded and relaxed for most of the day. However, beginning around 2:00 PM large ferry boats full of tourists visiting the Islas del Rosario (Isla Baru is the final stop on the tour) begin to arrive and the beach becomes crowded with lots of vendors offering food, jewelry and massages. They can be quite persistent, so it can be a bit harder to relax. Minh and I avoided them by spending most of the afternoon in the ocean.

More Photos of Playa Blanca

Restaurants and nightlife

Cartagena has many restaurants. These were our favorites:

La Mulata - Restaurant on Calle Quero. We had some delicious robalo (snook fish) in a seafood sauce, and shrimp in garlic sauce. This restaurant also has great natural fruit juices, and Minh had a delicious limonada de coco.

Torre Luna - Restaurant on Calle del Curato with a great selection of seafood and vegetarian dishes. We had some great fish with coconut rice, but were particularly impressed with how delicious the hummus was that we had as a starter.

La Cocina de Carmela - Lunchtime only venue located on Badillo Segunda. We enjoyed salmon salpicon, and pork with mora (tart berry that grows in Colombia) sauce. We also had tomate de arbol (tree tomato) juice.

Pizza en el Parque - A hole-in-the-wall place in Parque Fernandez de Madrid with fantastic pizzas. It’s basically a take-out place, so everyone enjoys their pizzas in the park across the street. We actually found this place because there were so many people eating pizza in the park and it smelled really, really good. Once we sat down, we saw that the same thing happened to others passing by.

Cartagena also has great nightlife. We loved having drinks at Cafe del Mar, a bar located on top of the wall at Baluarte de Santo Domingo with stunning views of the old city and the ocean. We also enjoyed a bar called Donde Fidel, located at the Paseo de los Dulces, that has lots of outdoor seating and plays great Salsa music. We also enjoyed a few beers at a place called Whisky Bar with outdoor seating facing the Parque Fernandez de Madrid.

On our final night in Cartagena, Minh and I rode a Rumba Chiva. Chivas are rustic, colorful buses originally used for transportation in rural parts of Colombia. A Rumba Chiva is a party bus, and the ones in Cartagena take you on a tour of the city at night with a final stop at a dance club. Rumba Chivas include a band that plays cumbia and vallenato music, all the Colombian rum and coke you can consume during the ride, and fried Colombian snacks - in our case, arepas de huevo and empanadas de queso. We had a great time drinking, listening to the band, and occasionally dancing on the Rumba Chiva. We also had a lot of fun at the club dancing to salsa, merengue and reggaeton.

Why We Could Never Live in Bogota

Although we had a great time in Bogota, there are certain qualities about this city, some serious and others petty, that makes us glad to be moving on to new places.

Our lungs wondered what they did to deserve this punishment

The air pollution in Bogota is terrible. It is very unpleasant and feels very unhealthy to walk on many streets because of all the car and bus exhaust. We really missed fresh air.

It’s always rush hour in Bogota

The traffic is always terrible, regardless of the time of day. This aggravates the pollution problem. Most drivers seem very aggressive, and pedestrians never have the right of way.

The Transmilenio is cheap, runs often, and is a great way to get around Bogota, except for the fact that it just isn’t enough for the millions of people that use it. Every time we rode the Transmilenio it was almost always packed to capacity. The system also has a lot of kinks to work out.

One weekday evening we were trapped on a platform because the buses that came by were already packed and couldn’t pick up more passengers. However, people kept pushing their way into the station, and the Transmilenio staff did not stop people from entering the station even though the platform was filled to capacity. We eventually had to push our way off the platform, and in the process I experienced my first ever panic attack. Someone accidentally elbowed me in the chest, and I felt the wind knocked out of me. It suddenly became really hard for me to breath and I thought I was going to be crushed to death. I lost it and started crying hysterically. Minh was able to push us through and we eventually made it off the platform, but it was truly a terrifying experience for me. Please note that I have ridden mass transit at rush hour in New York, Washington, DC, London, and Manila and have never come remotely close to to experiencing the level of fear I felt that day on the Transmilenio.

Credit card - “No soportada” (Not supported)

Sometimes our credit card will not work for days on end. Some of the credit and ATM support networks (Cirrus, Star, etc.) sometimes go down in Colombia, but you have no way of knowing when this will be. So you must always carry enough cash in case your credit card is rejected, or else you may be forced to depend on the kindness of strangers. Muchisimas gracias to the two gentlemen who helped us out at El Patio!

You call that a beer?

Colombian beer is terrible! They lack flavor, strength and complexity. The only saving grace is Bogota Beer Company, a local microbrewery that produces good beer. Unfortunately, BBC beers are not available everywhere, only at BBC pubs and at a limited number of restaurants and bars. So most of the time our only option was the crappy stuff. I must note that our vacation to Belgium last year spoiled us and left us with a level of beer snobbery that is just a tad above obnoxious.

Also, wine is surprisingly expensive. Aguardiente, a sugar-cane based liquor, is not terrible, and it won’t give you a hangover even if you drink half a bottle by yourself. You just need to make sure to eat some greasy food on the way home.

Things That Surprised Us About Bogota

In search of the best empanadas

We tried many empanadas at several bakeries all over Bogota, and we weren’t able to find empanadas that are as good as the ones you can buy in Jackson Heights, Queens. Some were pretty good, but none measured up to the empanadas that my mom buys for us from the Seba Seba bakery whenever we visit New York. The best we have found so far were in Zipaquira (a town located about an hour north of Bogota) at a place called Empanadas del Valle right off the Plaza del Independencia. We plan to continue our search for the best empanadas as we explore other cities in Colombia, and we’ll report back.

Where are the beans?

Almost none of the Colombian restaurants we went to in Bogota serve beans. Any Colombian restaurant in New York serves rice and beans as a side dish with most entrees. But here we are given rice and french fries (which are not particularly good) or oven-cooked, salted potatoes (which I do enjoy). Our Colombian friend Yolanda informed us that we should order a Bandeja Paisa if we want some beans. While this dish is delicious, it includes a lot of other items that we should not eat everyday, like chicharron (fried pork skins), fried sweet plantains, and a fried egg.

It was also a bit difficult to eat enough vegetables. Minh, not normally a big fan of vegetables, exclaimed after our first few days in Bogota that he had never wanted a salad so much in his entire life. We decided to eat at vegetarian restaurants a couple of times a week because we got tired of eating chicken or beef all the time.

Minh blends in with the Rolos, sometimes

Although Minh is taller than virtually everyone, for the most part Minh was able to blend in with the Rolos (people from Bogota). People would sometimes ask him for directions, and he just looked confused and told them that he doesn’t speak Spanish. The only time people really knew that he is not Colombian was when he was taking pictures.

However, Minh did get accosted by strangers when I wasn’t around. Apparently he’s an easy mark when he’s got his camera out and no Colombian bodyguard (a.k.a. me). In my absence, beggars always asked him for money, Jehova’s witnesses started to tell Minh their schpiel, and once in Villa de Leyva he got stung by a huge bee on his neck. I’ve decided he should always have constant adult supervision.

Being accosted by overly helpful employees at stores

Our first weekend in Bogota we went grocery shopping at an Exito, a large supermarket chain in Colombia. Nearly every aisle in the store had at least one employee who wanted to help us, pointed out any special items on sale, and offered to answer any questions we might have. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but one Exito employee did help us figure out the best deal available on yogurt, and gave us some free samples, so thank you Exito!

Want to buy a puppy? Head to one of the 30 pet stores on Avenida Caracas. Pajamas? Try one of the 25 pajama shops on Carerra 15.

There are entire blocks of streets where all the stores on those streets sell only one category of items. During our time in Bogota we came across the streets for buying pets, suitcases, eye glasses, flowers, shoes, and pajamas.

La ñina put a damper on our travel plans

It rained every single day that we were in Bogota. This is not normal weather for Bogota, but rather is due to the phenomenon of La ñina. Sometimes it was only a drizzle. But generally there was at least one big down pour a day, and sometimes there were three or four huge down pours in one day. We had to use the waterproof/fast drying clothes we bought for the Amazon all the time, and we were really glad that we bought waterproof hiking boots at REI.

On a serious note, the harsh rainy season has had some devastating impacts in Colombia. Over 200 people have been killed by floods and landslides and approximately 1.5 million people have been affected due to damage to their homes and/or livelihood caused by the heavy rains. If you are interested in making a donation to help the flood victims, you can do so through an organization called Conexion Colombia.

Great Day Trips from Bogota

The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá

Minh and I spent a Friday afternoon visiting the Catedral de Sal de Zipaquirá, an underground Cathedral built within the tunnels of a salt mine in the town of Zipaquirá, about an hour drive from Bogota. The Cathedral has 14 small chapels representing the Stations of the Cross each with a cross carved out of salt rock, a sculpture replica of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, and a large nave with an enormous, illuminated cross carved into the wall. Religious services, concerts, baptisms and weddings are held in the Cathedral. Our guide told us that the bride gets to ride into the Cathedral in a car, but the groom has to walk in with the rest of the guests. We really enjoyed our tour of the Salt Cathedral - It is a unique and beautiful place!

After visiting the Salt Cathedral we spent a little while walking around the town. Zipaquirá has a pretty main plaza with a large cathedral and Spanish Colonial buildings.

We discovered a great empanadas place off of Plaza de La Independencia called Empanadas Tipicas del Valle. My favorites were the carne and ranchera empanadas.

More Photos of Zipaquirá

Lake Guatavita

The Laguna de Guatavita is a sacred lake for the Muisca indigenous tribe and is the source of the legend of El Dorado. Once a year, a Muisca chief was coated in gold dust and taken out on the lake in a ceremonial raft. The chief would plunge into the lake and emerge with the gold washed off. The Muisca also made religious offerings of gold, quartz and emeralds into the lake. The lake is located in a crater amidst beautiful lush green mountains near the towns of Guatavita Nueva and Sequilé, about 90 minutes north of Bogota. The lake is part of a Colombian National Park and can only be visited with a guide. Our guide led us to three different lookout points along the rim of the crater where we could view the lake. She also told us about Muisca religious rituals, the debate over the origin of the crater (opinions differ as to whether the crater is volcanic or due to the impact of a meteor), and attempts by the Spanish to drain the lake in order to take all the gold. The lake is very pretty, but for us the highlight of the hike was getting to see the gorgeous surrounding countryside.

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Villa de Leyva

Villa de Leyva is a beautifully preserved colonial town located about a four hour drive north of Bogota. It has narrow cobblestone streets, and all of the buildings are painted white and have red-tiled roofs. Minh and I spent a long weekend there. We enjoyed walking around the town, buying fruit at the farmer’s market, and eating delicious meals at some great restaurants, most of which are located inside beautiful old colonial homes. Our favorite was a restaurant called El Camaleon, located in the Casa Quintero. Our visit coincided with Villa de Leyva’s annual Festival del Agua, and we got to watch part of the festival’s concert in the main plaza.

More photos of Villa de Leyva

We spent most of Sunday visiting the Iguaque National Park, located about a 45 minute drive from Villa de Leyva. The main attraction of the park is a hike through a forest that leads to a lagoon near the top of a mountain. Minh and I attempted to complete the hike, but it was very difficult due to the high altitude, the fact that most of the hike is vertical, and the rainy weather left the path extremely muddy and slippery. I hurt my knee a little more than half way through the hike, and we ended up having to turn back. Nonetheless, we still enjoyed hiking through the forest, breathing the clean, fresh air, and Minh got some fantastic photos of the surrounding mountains and streams.

More photos of Iguaque National Park

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Special Guest Blogger - Minh Nguyen

We've been listening to a lot of great Latin music since we've arrived. Either on TV, in the bars, or just on the street, Colombians love music. Here are some songs that we really like:





Whenever this song comes on, Jane makes me dance with her :-)