Santa Marta is on the Columbian Caribbean Coast and is situated on a perfect curve of beach, which makes it a popular vacation spot for Columbians. Along the beach is a cobblestone esplanade, and alongside this esplanade are dozens of small tents selling everything from ship models to jewelry to hand carved domino sets.
Santa Marta was founded in 1525 by Roger de Bastidas, Santa Marta is ideally located for visits to the Santa Marta mountain range, second in height only to the Andes that run through Columbia and two National Parks.
Cruise ships dock about a half mile to the centre of town (Puerto de Columbia). The port is a container terminal with no facilities for passengers. A short shuttle will take you to the centre of town by the beach next to the Custom House. It is easy to get around as it feels like a big, small town. Easily walkable.
Marianne, Marcel, Jan and myself jumped on the 10 o’clock shuttle to take a walk throughout the old part of Santa Marta. There is a little market inside the gate where the shuttle drops you off but a much bigger beach market just on the other side of the entrance gate. Hundreds of tented stalls selling mainly tourist type items, clothes, masks, magnets etc. but also household items, I saw a local person purchasing a fan, so just about everything is available at this market - meaning that it is not necessarily a tourist market. The main malecon (boardwalk/esplanade) is lively and colourful with many larger than life statutes and as you walk along there are plenty of signs pointing you in sightseeing directions. We were looking for the main cathedral and followed a sign but also a friendly local that made sure we were heading in the right direction. A very nice cathedral as far as cathedrals go, we have seen many and this one is nice to visit but not a huge wow factor - not that I am an expert. We then headed over to the Gold Museum (Museo Del Ora Tairona), worth seeing (air conditioning and free) as it has plenty of gold remnants as well as the history of this area and its people as well as the textiles through the ages. Some pieces go back to 1,000 BC, so a good way to spend some time. From here we headed to the Newlywed square, to be honest not a big deal during the day, looks just like a a block square, well, square but in the evening I am sure this is a very special spot as most of the trees have lights as well as many placards that contain lights. With some music playing in the background this would be a special place. There is another indoor market just down the street from this square as you head back to the boardwalk, probably a bit better prices than at the beach.
Time for a beer and some wifi as we head back to the ship, so we found a nice spot on the main road for a couple buck beer and a coke. Funny, something we never do is purchase from a street vendor but here we are and this guy just caught us at the right time for the right price and we purchased a mask (for our mask wall). $25 countered to $10, countered to $15 settled at $12. Done. We did buy a $2 fridge magnet at that previously mentioned indoor market.
Back to the ship for lunch and then grabbed my laptop to send the first blog postings, trying this out for the first time as we are not that impressed with the packages offered on the ship. We may have to concede depending on how this goes. I had trouble getting on at the terminal because of so any users but at the eleventh hour was able to post before the gangplank was raised as there were only a few diehards left. 4:30 all aboard time, I boarded at 4:20.
Sail away party and we are on our way to the San Blas Islands of Panama, scheduled to drop anchor at noon tomorrow. This will be a few days to post as my next available wifi will not be until Panama City. Until then… Here are a few pics of our day today…
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