Beach Time

For the last couple of days on the Caribbean coast, we did our best to get in as much beach time as possible. We spent one day in Tayrona Park, one of the most famous and beautiful parks in Colombia, northeast of the suburb we were in of Santa Marta. We went with a group of people from our hostel and spent the day swimming in the cool, salty water, walking the beach, tossing frisbees (and losing them in the ocean) and lounging in the shade.

Our last day on the coast was spent at the tiny hippie fishing town of Taganga, which boarders Tayrona park to the southwest. We went with an English couple we had met in Bogota and ran into again at the hostel in Santa Marta. Taganga definitely has the laid back, caribbean vibe. There were plenty of men with dreads and missing teeth swaying through the streets, dressed in the Colombian colors of yellow, blue and red. One such man declared everytime we walked by him: Thank you for believing in Colombia! with a big toothless grin. He came over to us as we were eating and explained the colors of Colombia to us in surprisingly good english and then tried to sell our friend Tabby a bookmark. When she politely declined, he asked us for a few coins to buy lunch and we all handed him a few coins, and Tabby handed him a whole handful. He thanked us profusely and walked away. At some point, he must have counted the coins in his hand and in a minute he was back at the table giving Tabby the bookmark for free. What a kind gesture from a man who already has so little to give!

We wandered through the crumbling streets and discovered how poor everything seemed away from the waterfront. On the side of one building, Jon spotted a giant map that was painted as a mural leading us to a multi-language book trade. The map was very cartoonish and primitive, but we decided to try to follow it. Sure enough, around the soccer pitch and off a bumpy dirt road, we found this beautiful white house surrounded by lush green plants and trees. As we got closer, we noticed that whole shells from the beach were slowly being added to the outside of the house and plastered on, almost covering the front of it completely! Inside was a lovely Swiss woman with a wall full of books in all different languages. She had bought the house 9 years ago and was still working on the shell project. The rest of the house felt like it had been plucked out of an Italian country-side and plopped down on the caribbean coast. We didnt swap out any books, but really enjoyed chatting with her. We wandered back to the beach and spent the rest of the day drinking a few cervesas and watching dogs chase iguanas. That evening we caught a night bus with a bunch of other travelers from our hostel to San Gil, a town about 8 hours north of Bogota and one of the outdoor adventure capitals of Colombia!