Day 468 – Cartagena to Santa Marta

Bus ride to Santa Marta

As we were sleeping, two girls checked into the dorm room. It was super early. I wasn’t sure what the time was, but I think it was between 12am to 3am. We were all woken when they turned on the lights!

The next time I woke up, it was 8.30am. We exited the air conditioned (24 degrees) dorm into the courtyard of Media Luna Hostel to have breakfast. Following the disappointing pancakes yesterday, we chose the two different omelette options that were nice. 

After saying goodbye to our friends at the hostel, we went to buy some snacks for the upcoming bus trip. We bought some Mr Brown brownies, which a Chilean guy had after every meal at the hostel.

We also went to the supermarket Exito to purchase some bananas and withdraw cash. However, I had to wait over 15 minutes in the line as it was packed and the checkout staff were sooooo frustratingly slow!

Cartagena to Santa Marta

We then raced back to the hostel for our 11am pick up. There was just enough time to use the bathroom before the bus arrived. We were expecting a small van to pick us up due to the narrow streets, but a medium sized bus was outside. Our large backpacks went into the boot and we got on to find only one other passenger. The bus was thankfully blasting out the AC, which was awesome! 

The bus was clean but there isn’t much leg room. We drove around picking up a few more tourists before arriving at the Marsol terminal near the beach, on the outskirts of the Historic Centre. We had to wait until midday when a whole bunch of locals filled the bus. The bus left the terminal at 12.05pm. Unfortunately as soon as the doors closed the bus became really smelly.

The 230km+ journey took us past a stretch of mangroves, which had shanty towns scattered within them. It must suck to live in the mangroves. Just before 1pm, we stopped on the side of the road. We could buy fruits, snacks and drinks as the bus was getting washed. The chicken empanadas were really delicious. One and a half hours later, we stopped at a service station in the town of Soledad for a toilet and snack break.

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We finally arrived in Santa Marta at 4.30pm. Everyone on the bus, including us, were expecting to be dropped off at our hostels. This was untrue. The bus driver just stopped at the Marsol Office and told everyone to get out. The office is opposite the Best Western Hotel. We are definitely not staying there. 

Santa Marta

We ended up walking the 1km to Hostel El Espanlete. There were several really nice walking streets that we saved in our memory as potential dinner options, for later tonight. 

The hostel, which is a former restaurant, was really nice. The European owners were very friendly and gave us heaps of useful information about Santa Marta. We were staying in a double room with shared bathroom. The bed was comfortable, and the room had storage space, a fan and even an AC!

We went back to the walking streets (also recommended by the hostel) to have dinner. It was only 6pm, so the night scene had not really begun. We had dinner at a rooftop bar called La Central Restaurant. They had a special on Margarita pizzas. Each pizza was a nice size considering the price.

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As we enjoyed the pizzas, we could see lightning in the distance. It’s not ideal to be on an exposed roof top during a thunder storm, but luckily we only had to deal with a few rain drops. After scoffing down our dinner we quickly walked back to the hostel. 

However, we were distracted by some cool artwork along the various streets in town. And once we saw Gnam Gelateria, we had to stop for some amazing gelato. The friendly staff member let us sample several flavours. I loved our combination of Cookies & Cream and White Chocolate Gelato.

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We walked back to the hostel, where the self proclaimed dracula (the night shift guy) let us in. We had showers before doing some research into Tayrona National Park, which is apparently going through a ticketing restructure (in a bad way) starting from the 6th of December, which is in two days. 

Our plan is to go tomorrow with our day packs to see if we can spend a night or two.  But we have no idea what to expect.

Travelled December 2019

Expenses and Transport

• Bus – Cartagena Hostel to Santa Marta Hostel Marsol Office- 52,000 COP (~$21 AUD) per person with Marsol at 11am