My Adventures in Colombia - Jan 5-25, 09.

[Luciano]

My wife and I just got back from a three week visit to Colombia. Every time we go we check out different areas. We keep our base in Bogota and then branch out from there.

This year we went to Paipa and then explored the northern coast; Santa Marta, Rodadero, Tobanga and Parque Tayrona.

Paipa is a nice little town. Kind of touristy, but the weather and overall environment was great. The main drag runs one way north to south. In the north is where most of shops and restaurants are. In the south part are where most of the hotels and thermales are located. Way north past the chuch is the rest of the town.

The termales were great. $6.00 U.S. for entry and only $2.50 for the full body mud mask, which was a real treat. We stayed at a cabana for about $200.00 for the week, which was pretty good considering we had six people. The accommodations were small, but we were fairly comfortable. The one thing about most of the Colombian homes, apartments and hotels I've stayed at is that they always seem too small; especially the kitchens. Anyway, from Paipa we took some day trips to Duitama and Sogomoso, both which were too industrial for my taste, but we had some great experiences visiting Tibasosa and Iza. I absolutely loved Iza. It's like a smaller, more laid back version of Villa de Leyva. We scoped out a lot that I estimated at about 5,000 or so square feet, which they wanted 20,000.000 pesos for, which comes out to about 10 g's. That's a pretty good price for a lot that size. Iza is definitely a place to go when you really want peace and quiet. It's what I would call a Siesta Town. A great place to just kick it and forgot about the outside world.

Tibasosa is a lot like Iza, but my wife preferred it over Iza where I had the opposite view. They both are similar, but Tibasosa seemed a little bit more animated than Iza. Either way, both of these places are must sees if you are in Boyaca. We also went to another town over by this really big lake. The name escapes me. The town is called Aquitania. When you take the main road you get to a branch off point where you can go either into the town or take another rode that I believe goes all the way around the lake. I was told it was about a 45 minute cab ride to go all the way around. We made the mistake of going into the town. Other than the church, the town really wasn't a place to hang out. We only stayed there a few of hours. We stumbled upon a free horse show they were holding in a makeshift arena and stuck around to watch the horses for a while before heading back.

To get to Iza and Tibasosa you have to take a bus to the terminal in Sogamoso and then from there go to Iza or Tibasosa. I believe you can also go to the terminal in Duitama and do the same thing. Bus rides were about .60 U.S.

We stayed in Rodadero for about a week and used that as our base to explore the rest of the area. We got a good deal on an apartment, $20.00 U.S. per person per night and it was about a minute from the beach. Rodadero has the reputation as being trendy, but I found it to be clean and very well maintained. As soon as the sun goes down there are bands of street cleanser combing the boardwalk and beach. In the evening, it is a great place to walk around. They sell everything. It's well lit, well patrolled and very safe. However, if you go, I would advise buying your own food. There is an Exito about three blocks from Avenida 6 where you can buy grub. It will save you a lot of cash. A full chicken was about 22,000 pesos at KoKo's, which is about $11.00 U.S. which is a lot of money compared to other parts of Colombia I've been. Our apartment had a kitchen so we cooked pretty much all of our meals.

I enjoyed Santa Marta. I wasn't too impressed with the beach, but I enjoyed walking around the town. I really wanted to see the museums, but forgot that they were closed on Sundays so we didn't have a chance to see any. The Taxi fare from Rodadero was 15,000 pesos, which was the same fare from the airport to Rodadero.

From Santa Marta we went to Playa Grande and Tanganga, which are about 5 kms out of town. Both of them are sleepy little fishing villages where you can buy fresh fish right off the boat. You can see both of these areas in half a day. The beach at Playa Granda was nicer than Tanganga, mainly because there wasn't as many boats. From Tanganga you can either take a boat to Tanganga or walk. The walk is a pretty easy hike of about 25 minutes. The taxi fare from Santa Marta to Tanganga was about 6,000 pesos.

The highlight of the trip was Parque Tayrona. It is absolutely gorgeous. I was very impressed with the beaches. I want to go again, but this time camp. It's impossible to hike all the way up to Pueblito Perdito, which was our objective. We made it all the way to Cabo beach, hung out there and then walked back. It's a pretty long hike. I estimated we took about 2 hours or so to get to Cabo from the entrance to the park. You can also rent horses if you choose, but since I had shorts on as did my wife, I didn't want to chafe my thighs and legs. The hike through the selva is a lot of fun. The trail is primitive, but easy to follow. What made this trip so memorable is that it was the first time my 67 year old mother in law had ever seen the ocean. The look on her face when she saw the water crashing into the big boulders peppered throughout the coast like some Dahli painting was something that I will never forget as long as I live. It was a priceless moment. Parque Tayrona is definitely a place I want to revisit and stay a while. I can't say enough good things about it. Again, everything in the park is expensive. Even higher than Rodadero. We packed lunches and brought along our own water and ate under a tree overlooking one of the beaches.

The entrance fee for non-residents has gone up a bit. It cost me $31,000 pesos. My mother in law was free because she was over 62 and my wifes entrance free was $12,000 pesos I belive. Make sure you bring ID or they won't let you in. Also, get there early if you don't want to have all your belongings rifled through by the police. When we left at 4:30 we saw a line of people waiting to get their bags checked. We got there at 7:30 and waited around until 8:00 a.m. when the park opened and didn't have to deal with any of that and we had most of the place to ourselves. To get to the park take a Taxi to Santa Marta and then from there a bus will take you to the park entrance. The cost of the bus was 4,000 pesos. When we left we took another, bigger bus and it cost us 5,000 pesos each and dropped us off at Santa Marta. From there we took a taxi back Rodadero.

As always leaving Colombia to come back to the States gets harder and harder. That's the problem with vacations. They always have to end. Hope this information is helpful.

L

[El Padrino]

Wow! Sounds like you had an excellent trip - and I for one am envious ;-S Thanks for sharing all of that with the rest of us! I'm sure you got a lot of good photos as well, and looking forward to seeing some of them. You can create an individual album for this particular trip over on your member page and embed that as a slide show on any other website. Just create an album and after you're finished uploading into that album, play your slideshow and you'll see the embed tag right there to copy and paste elsewhere. ;-)

[Paul]

Thanks for sharing your experience with us that have not been there yet. Looking forward to your pictures

[Don Gringo]

Thanks for sharing with us! Sounds like a good time, one day I have to go play tourist. I really appreciate your details, I plan to go there this summer and do some hiking. I find about anything you show up for early there are VFC's to worry about.... Very Few Colombians. ;)

[David Barkley]

Thanks for the report.
Another person , posted a similar trip , and the beaches all had course , brown sand, also lots of barren land with rocks.
The water was blue though.

Is there white sand beaches in that area?

[Luciano]

David Barkley said:

Thanks for the report.
Another person , posted a similar trip , and the beaches all had course , brown sand, also lots of barren land with rocks.
The water was blue though.

Is there white sand beaches in that area?

The sand and beach is different in every area. In Rodadero the water was dark blue, like the surf off Huntington Beach, here in Southern California, but warmer and the sand was off white. In Santa Marta the water was more like a brown/blue, kind of gross and the sand was off white and some parts darker. In Parque Tayrona there were beaches with white and off white sand and the water looked very blue and pristine. The whole place looked very clean and unspoiled. I shot about 1,200 images on this trip and have yet to start editing them. I usually make slide show videos from my photos and put them to music, but at this point I'm still trying to catch up to my reality.