We arrive by taxi into a dusty fishing village called Taganga which is nestled into the surrounding valley just a mere 30 minutes from Santa Marta. There are scattered hostels, a few restaurants on the beach and some dive shops offerring dirt cheap dive instruction. The roads are rough and dusty. The heat is still oppressive.
As John is still feeling under the weather, I head out to find a place to stay while he mans the bags.. I saw a few cool places but decide on the Divanga which is a bit more expensive than we had hoped - especially considering it is a tiny fishing village- but it has a pool and wifi. John plans on trying to rest for a couple days so the pool gives me a place to hang, read, pay bills and work on the blog (which has fallen seriously behind).
The staff here are outgoing and friendly. Everyone hangs around under the palapa most of the day just talking up a storm. I wish my Spanish was better as I am curious as to what they are talking about day after day but I am left to short conversations about typical tourist things - how to get somewhere, where to get food, etc. The hotel has a small bar upstairs and a little restaurant with good food. The prices in Taganga are a bit surprising as food is more expensive than Cartagena where we had expected everything to be higher than it was or Santa Marta for that matter. But this is certainly more of a tourist town catering to Westerners than Santa Marta which seemed to attract more Colombian tourist who generally speaking prefer a little more luxury. Us Westerns seem to embrace the idea of "roughing it" as a mode of vacation. So maybe the prices reflect the fact that the perception (based on some factual truth) is that Westerns will pay more as it still seems inexpensive by Western standards.
The beach itself is not much to write home about in terms of natural beauty. This is really a working fishing village and the boats and nets line most of the beach. As a tourist town though, the beach could use some cleaning - trash is just dropped along the beach. There is some environmentally conscious graffiti imploring people to keep the beach clean, but I don't think the message has sunk in just yet.
Although not truly inviting, the far end of the bay seems reserved for swimming and sunbathing. Of course the kids are much less particular than us - they have no problem playing in the water next to the fishing boats, and the fish guts - they clean the fish on small wooden tables just in front of where they "park" their boats. Youth - I envy the utter carefree nature.
Apparently there is a nicer beach accessed by a trail along the bluff. But John is not feeling up to it, and I had read some warnings though about robberies and muggings here so I'm a little hesitant to venture out alone. So its poolside lounging for us both. We even get an afternoon rainshower to cool things off a bit - a welcome reprive.
The town is only a few scattered dirt roads connected by one or two mainly concrete roads passing through in the other direction. At night it is pitch dark, and the road to our hostal takes on an eerie feel which has been intensified by a write up I read on another blog about the police trying to plant cocaine on tourists here in order to get a bribe. Story goes something like this: policeman stops you to see your passport - in Colombia you are supposed to have your passport on you at all times. Then he drops something and claims you dropped it when you pulled out your passport. Of course you argue back but the end result is you pay or go to jail. Of course we never really were able to fully substantiate this story or whether it was a one time deal or a common ocurrence. In any event, we played it safe and stayed clear of the dark roads and chose to hang out in the bar at our hotel.
