Caribbean slumming in Santa Marta
COLOMBIA | Friday, 8 August 2008 | Views [301]
Santa Marta didn't look too promising at first, especially after we took a wrong turn out of the bus station and ended up walking for hours in the back breaking 30 degree heat late at night. But illness and changing travel plans conspired to keep us at this beach side town for a lot longer than we expected and although nothing special, it is not a bad place to while away a few days.
We were so tired when we arrived in the town that we could barely lift our eyes to look at a room but despite this seemed to look at every hotel in the place before settling on the friendly sweat box that is the hotel miramar. After two nights feeling like Steve McQueen bleeding sweat in the awful heat of the tin box we called a room we had to move out though in search of air con. Nice people though and we found a great bar across the road that sells cheese toasties at midnight, cheap as chips bottles of larger and is home to some very friendly prostitutes.
Once we got air con things began to look up. We could skip down to the beach in the morning, retreat back into the cool of our room at the height of the 38 degree midday sun and head out again at night when it dipped to a more tolerable 35.
Managed to get a bargain deal on our ciudad perdida tour but had to put it off for a few days when Steve and then I got a cold. This gave us plenty of time to establish that there is pretty much nothing here except a bank, a beach and some cheap corner shops posing as bars. Maybe the heat was getting to us but we didn't care one bit.
Tags: colombia, santa marta, latin america, south america, bars, hostels, sea, beach, ocean, caribbean
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