Day 6: Santa Marta, Columbia

After leaving Aruba, our ship set a westerly course along the northern coast of South America towards Santa Marta.

Colombians like to call their country Locomibia, or the “mad country.”, a nickname that alludes not only to their self-destructive streak but also their penchant for revelry. This exuberance is among Colombian’s’ greatest charms, as though they are compensating for their country’s poor reputation abroad by being some of the warmest and friendliest hosts anywhere! Perhaps this warmth owes itself to their diverse roots – more than any other country in the Andes, the mixture of the European with the African and indigenous is more complete. The result is a rich culture and a nation of proud citizens anxious to show their country off. There’s certainly plenty to show off! In an area roughly the size of France, Colombia – the only country in South America to border both the Pacific and the Caribbean – offers every eco-system imaginable, from the Amazon Rain-forest near Leticia to the snow-capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. For now, though, tourism is barely even an industry. Only about 750,000 foreigners arrived to Colombia in 2002, most of them for business or to visit family. Perhaps that’s why experienced travelers refer to the country as Latin America’s best kept secret!

We got up early and ate breakfast. The ship was still sailing into port when we got up. It was clear that we were in a working port not accustomed to cruise ships. We saw lots of coal processing bins along with stacks and stacks of Ammonia Nitrate. Today we are taking a shore excursion that would take us to one of the country’s national parks. We disembark to the buses that took us to the Toyrona National Park. Our guide Ryhan was a student in international business and communication. He had just returned a few days earlier from a four week school trip to the USA.

When we left the port, we noticed the mounds of coal and ammonia nitrate sitting at the port. I sure hope it’s being used as fertilizer. As we drove out of the port, we noticed a lot of scooters and motorcycles. Many of the bikes carried two passengers. It was also interesting that they used them as taxi’s. In some cases we would see a bike with two passengers on them carrying packages. As we exited the port you get a good impression of how poor a country this is. Along the road we saw areas of shacks  were people lived. they were basically three walls of plywood against a rack background with another piece of wood as a roof. There were hundreds of these rooms that lines the roads and railroad tracks on the way out of the port.

After a couple hours on the bus, we reached Toyrona National Park.

This is a park that is tucked away into the rain forest. A short walk through the trees we saw lots of neat sites. We saw quite a few termite mounds up in the trees. Along the path we saw thousands of fire ants all in a line carrying leaves from the forest to their homes.

As we walked through the forest we could hear the roar of the surf. Just before we reached the beach there was a side trail that went up the side of the hill to a rock outcrop. The view from here was pretty amazing, you could see all the way down the beach and see the surf crashing on the rocks. The sky was a bit overcast, so you couldn’t see too far out to sea.

We spent some time at the top of the rocks and then walked our way back down the steps. Once we reached the bottom again, we walked out on the beach. The beach was gorgeous, we took some pictures of the surf. Just on the other side of the beach was a small lagoon.

We walked along the beach to the resort where we rested and had some drinks. The view along the beach was wonderful. This is definitely a place to come to enjoy the peacefulness of the rain forest and the ocean.

We had a group of about 20 people walking along the beach. It was hard for some of the people to keep up. I am sure they didn’t expect this much walking on this trip. It was only rated as “two hikers”, meaning moderate walking. I would consider this a “three hiker” tour. It was a lovely day, so it was not a problem taking our time as we strolled along the beach.

Along the way I noticed sand crabs running along the beach. One of them stopped just in front of me, so I took a picture of it. It was amazing how it blended into the sand. I would not have seen it there unless I had noticed it moving.

After we reached the resort, we rested and cooled off with a cold refreshment. We rested for about forty minutes at their outdoor pavilion where the guests of the resort eat. Along the path from the beach to the pavilion we noticed a huge bed with a canopy. I assume this is for relaxing out by the beach, rather than the cheap rooms 😉

It was a short walk back to the buses. On the ride back to the ship we saw a lot more motorcycle taxis carrying a lot of passengers. When we arrived back to the ship we grabbed lunch and took a nap, both of us were very tired after all the walking we did. After a short nap, I headed up to the crows nest with the Kindle to do some reading. I was watching the port and noticed they had these really interesting ways to unload the coal trucks.

Watching the trucks, I noticed they backed into a flat bed area. the entire truck was lifted up to about 75 degrees and all the coal slide out the back of the truck onto the conveyors. The port had four working lifts all running at the same time. It was quite a surreal site to see these semi-trucks lifted in this way. I spent a few hours reading and watching the port operations. After the ship had re-loaded all it’s passengers we went back to the cabin to watch the ship sail out of port. There were a lot of dock workers that had not seen a cruise ship before and they were waving and cheering us as we sailed by.

We got ready for dinner and tonight’s show. The show was a comedian Rick Starr. His comedy was really good, and I think I have seen him someplace before. We turned in early since we were both still tired from all the walking we did.

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