Dropping down, yet another gear - Caribbean living Taganga, Columbia

We left the beautiful oasis of Sachamama a few days earlier than planned due to the really heavy rains. We'd heard about the floods in Bogota and the horrific landslides affecting much of central Columbia after a trip to Salento town (we were very much out of touch with the rest of the world at Sachamama) and knew that we had to get on the road before it got worse.

We took a night bus from Armenia to Bucaramanga to break the long trip to the Caribbean coast. At the bus terminal we were told that 'normalmente' the journey takes 12 hrs, however as the conditions were not normal, it could in fact take 8 days. We were desperately hoping that they were joking. And so we hit the road at 8pm and at 9pm the bus stopped and did not move again all night, not arriving at our destination until 7pm that evening. It was a long and arduous journey to say the least, but thankfully it only took a day and not the 8 days as predicted! The next night we took another night bus and although packed out with kids, it was a pleasant and remarkably quiet 11 hrs to Santa Marta and our first taste of the Caribbean and warmth.

We made a bee-line for Taganga, a small fishing village only 10 mins from Santa Marta and stayed with John, a 70 yr old French-American for a few days. We were initially wondering if we had found the right hostel as John greeted us with his top off and was dripping in sweat. He turned out to be a nice guy with a very colourful past and spent much time recounting stories from the past 30 years of his life in Columbia.