Taganga Fishing Village and Tayrona Park, COLOMBIA

Adios from the windswept fishing village of Taganga, 4.5 hours north east of Cartagena, in northern Colombia. The village is surrounded by dry hills and beautiful bays, the streets are dirt roads, the people are dark brown (Caribbean) and very friendly, the fish dinners are cheap....the air is fresh and the never ending wind creates cloudless skies 24/7.

This is the fishing village of Taganga, only 5 km north east of the town of Santa Marta. An hour hike along the rolling dry hills and you´ll cover beautiful bays and wonderful vistas...turquoise waters and never ending horizons....all the way to Panama in the north west and the Caribbean islands in the north (closest is Jamaica). A mere 4 hours to the east is the Venezualan border. Often dusty as the winds blow, yet very refreshing to ponder life with the locals over a cool bottle of Brava Beer. We drink refreshing juices of wonderful fruits (zapote, lulo, maracuya and guanabana), blended with ice and milk if you prefer. In the evenings, a dash of local rum will do. Kids play in the shallow waters - absolutely no waves in sight for miles -- the smoothest sea I have even seen.

My breakfasts are Arepa, eggs deep-fried in flour tortillas, and my lunches and dinners are invariably fried fish of all kinds, fried rice, and fried bananas with a tidbit of grated cabbage and tomato.

As in many parts of South America, if am amazed and disgusted with the amount of garbage I see all over this place. Northern Colombia, despite its unrivaled beauty, is strewn with garbage! Today I even paid a local un-employed to clean up the beach. Thats my good deed for the day. I´ll sleep peacefully.

UPDATED
After Taganga I went an hour north to Tayrona National Park to explore the rain forests and the ancient pre-hispanic ruins of Publito, the settlement built by the Tayrona Indians. While the coastline is awesome -- among the most beautiful coast I have seen, I lost the path trying to reach Publito. As I was a mere 30 minutes into the walk through the jungle, the jungle swallowed the path, and before the jungle could swallow me, I turned around. Only later I was told that I had to literally crawl under a big builder to find the continuation of the real path. Well, so I could not reach the ruins in the jungle. Spent a few nights dozing in a hammock next to the beach, as beds are true luxury not to be found in this jungle.

I should be back in Cartagena on Thursday for my flight to Panama City on Friday afternoon. Back to civilization should be a real treat indeed!

Safety: Guerilla groups, including the FARC and ELN (M-19 recently laid down their arms), have been involved in terrorist activity all over Colombia (the world biggest exporter of cocaine), including bombings. Kidnappings are common and have involved foreign tourists where eight were kidnapped during a trek to Ciudad Perdida (Tayrona National Park) in September 2003. Despite the warnings, people (like myself) continue to travel to Colombia. So far I have only done the capital city Bogota, Cartagena and now Taganga and the Tayrona National Park. So far I feel very safe, locals are very friendly, speaks no English, and few foreign tourists are around. Highly armed Military men are everywhere. I highly recommend....come and see this beautiful country!