Our 1st month has gone by and we will soon be on our way to Cartagena for the next leg of our journey! It has been hot and humid here in Santa Marta, thank goodness for our pool!!! It also is the busy season here over Christmas and New Years, so we have seen a lot of comings and goings with tourists. We have had a great stay at https://www.hotelsuiteboutiqueelcactus.com If you are going to Santa Marta, I would recommend them! Indira and the staff there are awesome! We have walked countless streets, seen all there is to see, and tasted many of the cultural foods! Vince is more adventurous than I am, but I always try a sample of his!!! Below find a sampling of buildings, murals, foods and pics I just want to share!!! The one thing we missed is actual wildlife. We have seen lots of hummingbirds, and also some Iguanas. We did not see much else, even on our trips. We have seen MANY parakeets, and you may see them in the tree pictures, but they are fast and we never managed to get a picture of them!! PLUS they are green…..and so are the trees and leaves!!!
Santa Marta has several squares in the historical area that we are staying in, Parque de Los Novios, Simon Bolivar Park, and Old City Main to name a few. We have spent many evenings walking around and then sitting and listening to music, and people watching here. I have included some pics of the 3 parks, by far Parque de Los Novios is where we spent most of our time……know as Lovers park!
We booked a hiking tour to go up to a village called Minca, it is up in the mountains and we were hiking to a coffee plantation, a cocoa presentation and a waterfall. Minca is home to about 600 people, and is in the lower Sierra Nevada Mountains (1900 Feet). It was 15 km from our hotel, but took 1 hour to drive!!! The road to it was in great shape but was winding and switchbacks the entire way!! Once there we started off on our hike with a guide who was a Biologist and a Nature lover…..a Naturalist for sure! He was able to show us different plants, and birds and was very knowledgeable. He started by showing us the Coca Plant, which is everywhere, and having us each chew a leaf!! LOL, one would think that was not a good thing to do, in case you did not know but that is what Cocaine is made of!!! He explained all the traditional medical uses for the natives, including calming nerves and stomach issues……we were set!! Onwards into the bamboo forest we went, and crossed a river/stream. Many pictures of vines, bamboo, a termite nest, banana tree, flowers etc.
Staying on a well worn path, we arrived at the coffee plantation, had a cup of black coffee and off to learn about the process. Coffee grows on trees and form berry’s. These berry’s are then harvested and are squeezed through a machine to remove the fruit and separate the seeds. As you can see in the picture, the berry is red and contains 2 half beans that are white. Then they soak for 24 hours. All the best seeds sink, they are considered #1, and are the ones that get shipped. All the ones left floating are #2 and are the ones that are kept for local coffee! They are then dryed on racks for days! Next is roasting time in a natural wood fired roaster. #1 coffee beans are shipped green, #2 are roasted, bagged and sold locally. We have seen in Jamaica the process, but this gave a much better understanding, and was still very interesting.
We then hiked down a roadway and climbed down some rocks to get to the Pozo Azul waterfall. It was refreshing to get into the water and cool down, but was very small!! We had just a limited time to swim around, and then we had to climb right back up the rocks!
From there it was time to head back for lunch and we hiked, and hiked, and hiked………until I thought I would pass out! It was so hot, and so humid, and so much uphill, then downhill, then uphill again! It was only a 45 minute walk, but it sure felt like more!!! I have included a small map that makes it look much longer!!! LOL 😝 We arrived at a small hostel on the side of the mountain called Jungle Joes Ecolodge. Here we had a traditional lunch overlooking the valley below, all the way to the ocean at Santa Marta. What a fabulous view!
After lunch we learned about the making of Cocoa……and got to actually participate in making a chocolate, but not like we know it!!! It was explained that the cacao pod is picked, and harvested, by splitting the pod open and removing the beans which are then left to ferment. The pulp on the outside falls off when fermented. If this is not done properly it will ruin the cacao. The beans are then roasted, and are ready to be ground. One pod contains 30-40 beans and you need 400 dried beans to make 1 pound of chocolate. Our guide then took some of his roasted beans and put them through a grinder that made the cacao into a paste. We each got a spoon of paste, some brown sugar and nuts/seeds to mix in our hands! Once shiny we rolled it into a ball and it was now his version of a chocolate! It was sweet, but not smooth. We also were given some Hot Chocolate to drink, which was so delicious- it was made with Cacao paste, sugar and water- NO MILK!! It was like drinking a syrup…..Vince LOVED it, I found it way too sweet!
Christmas and New Years in Santa Marta was different than we imagined. They even had a Christmas Parade, that we got stuck in on our way to supper! We needed to cross this road and could not for over 2 hours!!! Lots of lights in the parks, lots of tourists, the place never shut down all through Christmas, it was go, go, go…..even Christmas Eve the stores were still all open at 800 at night! Christmas Day is a National holiday, and lots was still open, grocery store open, and we wandered around checking things out, went to the beach, saw some vendors, lots of people at beach, but not tons. Boxing Day (which they do not have here) was much quieter, streets were not as busy.
New Years was different! New Year’s Eve day is a national holiday and celebrating was all day long and into the night with Fireworks! New Year’s Day is also a national holiday, and EVERYTHING was closed…..everything!!! Grocery store even closed! The hotel gave us cupcakes and a small bottle of wine for New Years, which we ate and drank and watched the New Year come in on our rooftop, watching the fireworks. For several days after the New Year the streets were quiet, but then it finally picked back up on about the 3rd.
From our rooftop we always see a statue that looks religious. We searched it out and there is very little about it online. We decided one day we would hike to it. It is called the ‘Cerro Virgen de la Milagrosa’ (Hill of the Miraculous Virgin) It was a great hike, glad we did it, but wondered why there really is no info on it. Unless you go looking for the road up to it, which is dirt/gravel and does not look like anything in particular, you would miss it totally! Looks like it is not kept up, lots of garbage all around!! It did afford us a spectacular view of Santa Marta though! We were told by the front desk that on some religious days the road that goes up there is lined with people who are visiting the statue. We ran into 1 person, a homeless man sleeping at the top……thats it, and it was on Sunday!! I included a picture to show you our hotel from the Hill, and the hill from our hotel!
The town of Taganga is a small fishing village located just 3 km away from Santa Marta, on a crazy winding road (again) opposite direction from Minca! It is a cool little town that is in a small bay on the water. We wandered the town for a day after taking an UBER there (cost was $5.5 CAD)
