We are currently standing on the Caribbean coast of Colombia after
a bus from the Highland mountains to Palomino
Palomino is a hippie town and it sits in the Coast with not that much infrastructure has
like dirt roads nothing's really paved there and a lot of shacks that you'd go and have dinner in we
basically spent the day walking around exploring all of the restaurants walking along the beach
with a bunch of dogs for way too long until we could see the Sierra Nevada mountains which was
so bizarre because we were standing sweating on a beach and if you just turned looked past
all of the densely green forests there was a mountain covered in snow it was pretty weird
it's so bizarre seeing snow and sweating that much the reason we went to Palomino is because
it's right next to Teyrona National Park which is the park that you need to go to when you're in
Colombia but we made one of our probably biggest travel blunders we've ever made it's a Tayrona
national park closes three times a year just for environmental sustainability to give the plants
and the wildlife a break from human activity which is amazing love that what I don't love is
that it's in January in October and in June yeah the very day we plan to go there is the first day
of its closure so we couldn't wait around either such a bummer because it's something I was looking
forward to a lot it looks like an amazing place to visit but instead we made some quick decisions
and today we are spending the day in Colombia's oldest city Santa Marta even though Santa Marta
is the oldest town in all of Colombia when you read on blogs about what there is to do here
three of the top 10 things to actually leave the city could be because we're surrounded by pretty
amazing things like the Tayrona national Park we talked about a city called Minka that just
looks so beautiful and also this is the jumping off point for the lost city Trek at least one
of those top 10 things to do is to come down to this part here this is the Malecon which I believe
translates pier in Spanish but it's effectively an Esplanade that goes all the way along the
coast nice to look at the sea without having to get Sandy like we did in Palomino it's giving
Waikiki Hawaii meets nha trang Vietnam I agree any City on the beach is giving Waikiki Hawaii
this is one of those beaches that dots along the malecon it's really really wide but the sand is
not white and it's a little bit dirty seems like they've tried to clean it up though it's very much
like a resort town like the resorts are really nice they sit on the beach but you'd probably
just stay in your Resort pool one really cool thing about Colombia is in the morning there's
all these coffee vendors walking around with their little carts and they have so many different pots
on board I think there's coffee maybe tea or just hot water and hot chocolate we went for a coffee
each this morning which cost 3,000 pesos which is about a dollar for two tiny little coffees
they are burning hot which sucks because the temperatures also really really hot so I am
sweating so much and we can't even get relief by jumping in the ocean because neither of us have
bathers which is like a side goal of today we want to go to some market area in hopes that they sell
bathers because the next town we're going to we are definitely going to want to hop in the water
really really good quite sweet which makes it your own I just wish he's somehow sold iced coffees
this statue is of Rodrigo de bastidas who was the founder of Santa Marta he's a conquistador from
Spain who came here with a bunch of guys and was known as the noble conquistor because he wanted
to keep relations with the locals good because he wanted to live here but he ended up trading heaps
with the locals getting heaps of gold which he wouldn't share with any of his guys and he forbid
his guys from beating up locals and taking their gold so they stabbed him they literally stabbed
him in his sleep and he died it's a bit of a rough ending but he also had a bunch of slaves
so I don't know how Noble he really was cool statue though there's been like a handful of
cities since we've been traveling around the world that have this sort of thing that like
9 of the top things to do are leaving the city but if you are sticking around in Santa Marta one
of the main things you can do is come and hang in park de Bolivar which is named after Simon Bolivar
they have a statue of him here as well and that is because he actually died in Santa Marta and I
think his house is here somewhere that you can go visit so we're sitting in the park super exciting
it's actually really cool in here because there's so many trees covering there are so many benches
and what's crazy is that later in the afternoon it gets packed like these benches will be full
there will be people sitting on the sidewalk just because it's so much cooler in here than out in
the sun this sort of connects the beach over there to the market that we're trying to make
our way to now but we did just need a break from the heat so it's been nice chilling out in here
there's also heaps that animals like what looks like a woodpecker I've never seen that before
we have decided it's far too hot so we've been walking around Carrera 3 which is sort of like the
pedestriany really cool restaurants Cafe Street in Santa Marta and we've stopped to hopefully get
an iced coffee or like a cold juice or just some cold water thrown on my face I really thought we
would be getting iced coffees here because that's what we usually get but that coffee on the beach
kind of satisfied me and they have slushies so I'm getting a cherry slushie and Emily's
getting a strawberry slushie and also one cold water because we need that more than anything
and then we'll go to the market and get bathers it's as if they've gotten a bunch
of frozen strawberries and Blended them together it's delicious and very very cold
This Market we're going to is actually where we got dropped off when we came to Santa Marta from
Palomino its absolutely hectic we had all our bags and we were not ready for it then but we
knew we were going to come back I know they sell fruit and veg and they should have a few clothes
so hopefully we can find some bathers this is some options for you do you like the pineapples
thank you okay that was so easy I think you're supposed to haggle a little bit here but
20,000 peso like that's less than ten dollars so happy with that let's try and find you some
base we're in a clothing store now which I thought would be more promising but I'm
finding it difficult to know where the bikinis would be like if this was a store in Australia
I think I'd be able to find it quite quickly but for some reason here I'm like overwhelmed
with this music playing I have no idea there's women's men's kids stuff all mixed together
no luck I think maybe I'm a bit more conservative when it comes to my bikini bottoms
the hunt continues
okay in my size in my favorite color and they were on sale
that took a bit longer than expected so it's time to get something to eat
thankfully here they've got something called menu of the day or menu Del Dia which we're
seeing everywhere and we haven't tried yet we did see a place where we were last night that
sold it that looked quite nice so we're going there oh really nice we are on like one of the
main squares here and the menu of the day is only 20,000 pesos which is under ten dollars
the things that we're seeing everywhere around here isn't originally a Spanish thing it was
actually enforced in law in Spain back in the day the dictator who probably because he's a
dictator wasn't a very nice guy he did one cool thing which was make sure that workers
of the country were able to get a fair meal at a fair price so you normally get a choice of meat
a soup an Arepa in some cases a juice and some rice and sometimes a plantain so we can't read
Spanish so we don't really know what we're getting on this one all we know is that we
think it's going to be fish rather than a choice of meat I guess because it's a Port
City Fish makes sense it's like quite fresh our first course is soup just judging from the color
it looks like some sort of pumpkin soup which sounds delicious even though it's really hot
is that almost like chili Curry sort of flavors yum first course is down it was
amazing kind of already I can see it getting worth it like worth the
money it was delicious oh I've never had plantains in chip form like this before
yeah now we have our main dish which is like a fried almost battered looking
fish some rice plantain chips and a salad meal of the day is the way to go
I don't know what that flavor is but it's yummy it's almost like coconutty
I never order fish but every time I have it I'm pleased that I've had it because I know
that it's really good for me and it always tastes better than I think it's gonna taste
delicious couldn't even finish it meal of the day wow it's a great option the day
is not over there's one more thing we need to see it involves services and the Sun the
Escalade is so much more lively at sunset time there's people dancing working out swimming
it's not a bad way to end 24 hours in Santa Marta I know people probably don't
normally stop over here from what we found blog posts will tell you
to go somewhere else I have quite enjoyed our day next up Cartagena