January 5-8, 2008
Days 829-832
The main beach in Taganga.
Santa Marta was full. It was high season, so Colombians and foreigners alike were vacationing in the sun. I couldn't find any hotels with vacancies, so I slept in the hallway of a hostel for the first two nights. There wasn't a lot of touristy stuff to see in Santa Marta, and it wasn't the cleanest city, but the fun atmosphere was a great change of pace from Venezuela. People were drinking, listening to music, and dancing in the streets all day, every day, and I felt entirely welcome to join them.
The beaches in Santa Marta weren't very pleasant, so I took a short trip to Taganga, a small fishing village just north of the city. There I found several beaches that were cleaner, but still overcrowded. The other thing I found in Taganga were a bunch of scuba diving shops offering cheap lessons. I decided it would be a nice place to learn and signed up.
The photo album for this entry is here.