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March 02, 2005
Taganga, Colombia
it's terribly easy to lose track of time and many other things when you are at the beach.
so the overnight bus from Villa de Leyva wasn't so bad, especially considering that we nixed the idea of visiting another small mountain town and headed straight for the coast. it was a good moment, we all looked at each other and it was decided, and we on our way. we had a nice stopover in Bucaramanga, a medium sized modernish city in which we ate chinese food that actually had tofu, and drank some beers at a bar called 'Moe's Bar,' and had rad images from the Simpsons all over, especially the halloween episodes, and many of them hand drawn. god knows the copyright lawyers never make it to Colombia.
and then the next morning, we awoke in the city of Santa Marta. it was muggy and we were sweaty and tired from the bus, and we boarded a minibus piloted by some crazy guy that zigzagged on random streets for 20 minutes before depositing us in Taganga, a small fishing town next to Santa Marta. Now we had heard tell from many other travelers that this was The town, excellent for scuba diving, swimming in the ocean, and lounging around like a lump. at first glance, i was underwhelmed. instead of the tropical caribbean i had envisioned, it was arid, kind of like how New Mexico would look if it had an ocean.
that said, in the 4 days that we have been here this town has grown on me considerably. for instance, yesterday we awoke and decided to postpone our 7 day hiking trip so as to sit on the beach another day before all the exertion. they we headed down to the beach to drink fresh juice, i had tomate de arbol as per usual, though my dad think lulu is much better. from there it was catch a water taxi out past the last beach, and before we boarded the taxi, a small white dog decided he wanted to come along. the taxi dropped us and the dog off at an empty beach, and we walked out along some rocks to some tiny coves. the water finally did what we had been hoping it would for 3 days, namely giving off that blue green glow that i like so well. shortly thereafter we found the fabled rock jumping spot, and proceeded to hurl ourselves from 10 meters into the water. good times. after that it was back to the town to chat with our hiking partners, hailey from canada and scott and angie from wisconsin. our hike secured, we swam out into the ocean to watch the excellent sunset. on returning to the shore, our adopted dog's owner found hmi and took him away, and though he looked forlornly at me i decided not to kidnap him and take him to venezuela. it was really nice to walk around the town with the dog at my heels, the locals looked at me with respect. then returned to the hostel to cook a dinner of fresh coconut milk peanut sauce over sauted veggies and brown rice, which turned out excellent and had the other travelers jealous of our skills as cooking artists. then we sat in the backyard of the hostel sweating and drinking beer till late. it's a good life.
on the bad side of things, aaron got some spines in his foot from the reefs yesterday, which meant i was at the doctors office this morning watching a nurse dig unmercifully into the bottom of his foot in search of the offending entities, which had given him an infection overnight. plus, kristy has an upset stomach, and we are set to leave tomorrow morning on the hike at 6 am, so we shall see how things go. i have all confidence in our abilities.
congrats to megan on getting a promotion, and aunt freddi if you read this i hope your arm heals quickly. everyone else, i will think of you when i am gazing upon the excellence of the lost city, high in the sierra nevada mountains of colombia.
Posted by bendan at March 2, 2005 05:46 PM
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