Santa Marta, Colombia

We had another long day of travelling yesterday. We left Mexico City at 7am and took a taxi to the airport. We had intended to get a taxi at a taxi rank we had walked past a couple of times as it looked "official",  but there was only a single empty cab there yesterday morning.

While I waited for the driver to return Craig walked back to the main street and after a short wait he managed to flag down another one. It's important to establish the taxi fair in advance to avoid getting ripped off, so I asked, in Spanish, how much the cost would be. Unfortunately the guy just returned with no more than a ramble, which I couldn't understand, but then I noticed that there was a meter.

After a couple of kilometres I noticed that the meter wasn't moving, and we sensed a scam and a demand for a ridiculous amount of money when we arrived. However, when we pulled up outside departures, after a rollercoaster ride of over 30 minutes, the guy asked for 100 pesos. Now, when we took the taxi from the airport to our apartment, following the safety instructions on a website, the cost was 230 pesos - and Mago said that was dirt cheap!!! 100 pesos is less than 9 Aussie dollars, around 4 GBP!

After a 4.5 hour flight we arrived in Bogotá, the Capitol of Colombia, and after a 4 hour wait we took the second flight to Santa Marta in the north, just 1.5 hours.

In the airport bar in Bogotá

In the airport bar in Bogotá

In-flight progress on second flight of the day

In-flight progress on second flight of the day

The streets in Santa Marta are a bit rough. It rained last night and the was water everywhere as there's no drains!

Doing what you're not supposed to do, eating the local food sold by street vendors. This stuff costs next to nothing, and was really good (and we didn't get the shits!)

A bit like a meat paella

I'm not sure what she was laughing at!



Drunk..? I doubt it, probably just living on the streets or simply having a nap. We were surprised how rough the place was

A meat and potato 'empanada' type thing bought off a street vendor

 

A local brew

 

Fancy this for Machu Picchu Craig..?

We're off to Barranquilla tomorrow, thankfully by bus as it's only 100 kms along the coast - we're sick of airports already!