Santa Marta, Colombia
Traveling to Santa Marta
December 18, 2007
The journey to Santa Marta started with a taxi ride from the old city to the bus terminal, which took about half an hour and was an experience in its own. The beginning of the journey was via a three-lane road that technically had lanes but they seemed to be ignored by everyone. It was a free flowing race of taxis, motorcycles, and buses through a thriving riverside marketplace. People were weaving in and out and cutting each other off, no turn signals were used of course. First, there was the fish market with people carrying loads of fish back and forth and workers gutting and cleaning the fish by the side of the road and the river, next to piles of rotting trash. The condition of the market is best described as total and absolute squalor. Stores were set-up in the wreckage of abandoned buildings that had at most three walls with trash, stray dogs, and little kids moving about everywhere.
The market place then gave way to what was in theory a two-lane road with a lane of traffic each way for taxis, trucks, and buses, and a lane for motorcycles on each shoulder and one down the middle of the road. Throw in the occasional horse or mule drawn cart plodding along and it was really something of an obstacle course. Amidst this chaos our taxi driver was passing people and several times he had to duck back into our lane before smashing into a mule or getting hit by a car. Somehow we made it to the terminal and he definitely earned his money, about $6 for the 30 minute ride.
I enquired about tickets for the bus and found them to be rather expensive at 25,000 pesos. I then asked if there was a cheaper bus and the guy at the ticket window dropped the price to 20,000 pesos without hesitation ($10). The bus was actually quite nice with comfortable reclining seats, powerful air conditioning and TVs playing El Transportador, dubbed into Spanish; not bad for the 4 hour journey. When the bus reached Barranquilla, two thirds of the way there, most of the people got off save for six people. Magically, a representative from the bus company said there was a mechanical problem with the bus and that we needed to switch to another bus. I figured that this tactic allowed them to avoid driving the bus there with only six people. The other bus, after loading up with passengers, took two hours more before finally arriving in Santa Marta.
Santa Marta is sort of a resort town, and apparently is packed with Colombian families on vacation. There did not seem to be anything special here really, well except for that in the first six hours I was here I had five separate people offer me an assortment of drugs, from cocaine to marijuana, and prostitutes. These men always started with nice friendly talk enquiring about where I was from and about Colombia and then they would lean in and say something more quietly like, “so man, what you want, coca, marijuana, sexo?” Fortunately I was able to join a tour to Ciudad Perdida that will be leaving tomorrow so I want have to fend of those offers for another day.