23/09/2022 From the Floating Hostel to Santa Marta

Santa Marta

After the boat trip and a five-hour-mini-bus-ride from Cartagena, we got to Santa Marta at 8 p.m..

Quite overwhelming

We checked into our hostel Mr. Bamboon that was located right in the city centre and then went out to explore the city and to grab some food. It was packed! At every corner, people were trying to sell us food, drinks, souvenirs, cigarettes and even drugs. Or they shoved their food menus into our faces. There were street artists, including dancers, a guy playing the saxophone and people rapping or doing acrobatics. It was a sensual overflow!

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24/09/2022 Santa Marta
In the next morning we enjoyed our free breakfast on the hostel’s rooftop.

Explore the city centre

Afterwards we explored the city centre further. To be honest, it didn’t look anything special (especially after the colourful old town of Cartagena). Furthermore, the craziness from the previous night was gone during the day.
We walked to the city beach (also not that pretty with big container ships in the background) and enjoyed some frozen yoghurt, until it started raining quite heavily. This was a good excuse for us to relax in the hostel hammocks for the rest of the afternoon, before going out for dinner at night.

Eat at one of the many tasty restaurants

Nice catch up with other backpackers

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25/09/2022 Santa Marta
Today was a very special day for me as I was about to make one of my goals on this world trip come true: I’d do my advanced open water dive certificate.

Get your PADI dive certificate

Santa Marta is one of the cheapest places in South America for getting your dive certificate. This was one indicator for me. The other reason was that this would probably be the last dive spot before the Galapagos Islands. So it would be handy to have my advanced open water certificate for that.

Different dives

Together with an Irish couple, we did three dives on the first day: the deep dive of 30m, a buyoncy dive and a navigation dive. Since it had rained the night before, the visibility was pretty bad. That meant that for the navigation, we actually had to rely on the compass as we couldn’t see anything or anyone past three metres (so no cheating possible 😉).

Go on a free walking tour

Blake had been on a free walking tour in the mean time to learn more about Santa Marta – Colombia’s oldest city.

Can we trust the local food (again)?

Blake – the biggest sports fan

In the evening one of Blake’s many sport teams played (49ers – American football). This is why we went to a sports bar to watch it. I only made the first period. The early start in the morning and the diving had really taken its toll on me. Maybe it was good to not stick around as Blake’s team lost and I would have had to deal with quite the grumpy Blake afterwards 😉…

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26/09/2022 From Santa Marta to Buritaca

Shipwreck dive and drift dive

This morning I was finishing my advanced open water dive. Today it was only the dive instructor and I (and a big Colombian family that did their discovery dive with another dive instructor).

Best hostel in Colombia

I got back to the hostel just in time for our check out at 12 noon. So Blake and I packed our backpacks, caught a taxi to the main bus terminal and were off to the Rio Hostel (1 hr 45 min away), that got voted as best hostel in Colombia and second best hostel in Latin America in 2018. Needless to say that we had high hopes 😉.

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Continue reading:

26-28/09/2022 Rio Hostel, Buritaca and Tayrona National Park