Day 509 – Santa Marta

Exploring Santa Marta

We experienced a crazy amount of wind last night. This wind continued into the morning. It felt like a tropical storm was about to come through town. But it never did.

After getting ready, we headed downstairs to have breakfast at Color Hostel. I tried the pancakes today, which were delicious.

Castillo de San Fernando

After reading about Castillo de San Fernando (San Fernando Castle) on a travel blog, we decided to visit. The staff at the hostel didn’t know about it, but as we had breakfast they looked into it. It appeared to be inside a military base, so we probably couldn’t visit it. 

We tried walking to the castle and found that the hostel staff were correct on both counts. The castle is inside a military base and the patrolling guard said that we couldn’t visit. 

Seriously can’t trust travel blogs =P

Museo de Oro Tairona

Therefore, we walked back into the central part of town to visit the Museo de Oro Tairona (Museum of Gold Tairona). The museum was a shock. It looked like a normal building from the outside, which we walked past so often when we were first in Santa Marta. 

Inside is an excellent free museum that houses a handful of artefacts spread over 2 levels. The room full of gold was the highlight and the majority of exhibits had information in English and Spanish.

The only exception was the room dedicated to Simon Bolivar (a famous person in history who is credited with freeing the area from Spanish rule), which was all in Spanish. Several rooms had information about the history of Santa Marta, which was surprisingly complex.

We spent a little over 1.5 hours here.

Rest of the Day

For lunch we headed back to the restaurant Lulo. As always the food was nice, but the most interesting part was the conversation we had with some other travellers. The 3 guys we met were all Kiwis who were travelling around South America. They had also visited Antarctica and highly recommended it. Not something to do on a backpackers budget, but the photos of the penguins looked amazing. 

My only concern with visiting Antarctica besides the price tag, is the environmental impact. But I guess all travel is impacting the environment in a negative way, including ours. I think there are ways to be more sustainable, but not 100% sustainable.

While we pondered this, we went back to the hostel to relax, tired from walking around in the hot sun. After nightfall, we visited a nearby restaurant, La Burgueria Hamburguesas Artesanales for some amazing burgers.

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Travelled January 2020

Main Expenses

• Entrance – Museo de Oro Tairona – FREE
• Lunch – Lulo Restaurant – 60,000 COP (~$24 AUD)
• Dinner – La Burgueria Hamburguesas Artesanales – 48,000 COP (~$19 AUD)