Sweet Santa Marta

Our longest Colombian stop - 5 nights - was in Santa Marta, about 4 h drive up the coast from Cartagena. Here we had a homeexhange with Carlos, who actually both came to Stockholm and Orsa last summer!

Apart from the beach and the pool there were a lot of things to do around Santa Marta. The activity ambitions differ somewhat between different family members, so Junia and Alma had some full chill days at home.

We started off with a full family excursion to Minca however, 45 min up the mountains, which offered numerous cool hikes, waterfalls, cafes with happy brownies and a vibe very similar to Skattungbyn. A typical backpacker destination in other words where we easily could have spent more days if time had allowed.





Then we had some proper New Year’s Celebrations at the beach where the density of people was similar to Tokyo’s subway 7AM. We learned about Colombian New Years traditions (dress in white, eat tamales and burn a little doll which represents the sorrows from last year), and noticed that the punctuality when it came to fireworks was nonexistent. It was just party hard, loudspeakers and fireworks everywhere continuously, with some kind of crescendo starting about 23 o’clock… We loved it! 

Justus and I also had half a day of diving - lovely coral, and my highlight was a group of squid passing by which Justus missed. But I couldn’t figure out where the sea horse were, so we’re even.

The national park Tayrona is another highlight in the area, and here Kiara, Justus and I did some beautiful hiking and animal spotting. The cayman wasn’t very photogenic though. 

Despite that the amount of people sometimes felt like Norrmälarstrand a sunny Saturday morning, the mini-capibaras were not shy and were strolling around just a few meters away to Kiaras delight. Given a temperature around 30 and a humidity close to 100% we were really grateful that we got a cloudy day.

Now we are leaving the hot coast behind us, and will spend the last few days on a cooler altitude. Hopefully we can also manage to drag the whole family along on a hike!