Santa Marta is a city where you stop to visit the Tayrona Park. I had read in many comments and opinions that this "stopover" town was of no great interest.
But I don't agree at all! This city has charm, cultural riches (the oldest city in Colombia) and above all a very marked Caribbean identity! It deserves to be known both for its atmosphere and for its ideal location between Tayrona Park and the magnificent Sierra Nevada mountains.
What to see in Santa Marta? The historic center
The historic center of Santa Marta with its colonial houses and its places dedicated to Simon Bolivar (died in Santa Marta in 1830) is nice and worth the visit!
From our hotel, we were able to walk around the historic center on foot in one morning.
We used the map given by the hotel and visited the Cathedral, Simon Bolivar square, the Gold Museum, the park de los novios.
What to do in Santa Marta? Prepare your excursion to Tayrona Park
This is what we did in the afternoon.
I knew we could take the bus from the market to go to the Park and fend for ourselves. We therefore locate the places. We learn that the bus runs every 20 minutes and that it will drop us off at the main entrance to the Park. The price is 8 COP or approximately 000 Euros.
We learn that the entrance to the Park costs 54 COP (around 500 Euros). It will then be necessary to add the price of a minibus 16 COP (15 Euros) to save 000 km of walking at the entrance of the Park.
Back at the hotel, we will check the information and the progress of the visit on the aviatur site: http://www.parquetayrona.com.co/contenidos/parque-tayrona
We will therefore take the bus at 7:00 a.m. (park opens at 8:00 a.m.) and think about take water and our passports.
What to do in Santa Marta? Prepare your excursion to the Cienaga Grande
I wanted to organize for the day of Monday August 13 (2 days later since we were Saturday) an excursion to the nature reserve of Cienaga Grande by Magdalena. It is a huge mangrove swamp populated by hundreds of birds and on which 300 fishing families traditionally live in houses on stilts.
I thought we would easily find a local agency that would offer us this excursion. But after having questioned them all, we could not count on any agency of Santa Marta having a storefront.
Disappointed but still stubborn, I decided not to give up. So I went back to the Internet and made requests to all the agencies on the Internet that were in the region of Santa Marta hoping to get a quick response ...
Find out in the articles that follow our day at TAYRONA Park and our wonderful excursion to the Cienaga Grande by Magdalena !