Cartagena > Barranquilla > Santa Marta > Taganga Day 323
Monday January 25, 2010 – Had breakfast at the usual haunt, then hopped in a cab (11,000) to the bus terminal. Arrived around 10.30am and the bus to Barranquilla (10,000 ea) leaves at 11am with Brasilia……perfect!
We arrived at 1.20pm, definetely think we got ripped with the food on the bus. I think we were only supposed to give a tip…it was a cheap lunch anyway! With our limited Spanish we couldn’t find out times for buses later this afternoon so we ended up jumping on a bus (Berlitienda 11,000 ea) at half past and heading straight for Santa Marta instead of searching the town for accommodation for carnaval.
We arrived around 4pm & jumped straight into a taxi to Taganga (12000) only a short ride up & over the hill. The place looks amazing, beautiful & calm little bay. The surrounding scenery however was not what we expected, very dry & bare with lots of cacti dotting the landscape!
Our taxi driver didn’t know Bayview Hostel but luckily we spotted one of the Aussies from the other yacht & he was able to point us in the right direction. We ended up with the last private room, not cheap at 60,000 per night but it’s a pretty cool spot – Bayview Hostel.
We cruised around town & grabbed something to eat, one really cool bonus is the food is heaps cheaper here than any where else we have been. When we got back to the hostel we watched the last half of Die Hard & then hit the bar and met Jimmy. He’s an aussie that has been running the bar for the last month, he gets a pretty good deal – free bed & a percentage of the takings.
Jimmy is organising a big event for Australia Day tomorrow -barbie, cold beers & a cricket match. The place seems to be crawling with Aussies so it should be a great day!
We spent the rest of the evening having a few drinks & watching Kill Bill on the projector out over the pool. We didn’t get to see the end we were too shagged!