HugsHandShakeshi5s: Colombia (The Northern Coast)

I am going to South America!

I have been saying this for about a year. In that time I gained the interest of my friend Katie, who was down for a trip to the continent just south of us. We originally wanted to go all the way down to Patagonia and travel up, but as we looked at ticket prices our initial destination migrated further and further north until we found a killer deal on tickets to Cartagena, Colombia. Pretty much as far away as you can get from Patagonia, whilst remaining in South America. So we bought our tickets, and I told my sister (with whom I've talked about going to South America since out last trip together 5 or so years ago) and she bought a ticket too.

Now I am in Colombia traveling with these two awesome ladies. So far I only have positive things to say about them. We have a good group dynamic and branded ourselves as the Chicas Tranquilas (translating to chill girls). In-fact we even made an instagram account if you don't want to wait for me to get around to another blog post (IG: chicastranquilas).

Immediately upon arrival we were invited to join a few Argentinians to walk up a local mountain, with a church on top. So without time to pull out Colombian pesos, eat lunch or even hydrate we start walking. It was hot out! We just came from the winter to the Caribbean coast, we were sweating to say the least. On the speedy walk up we passed various vendors selling food, snacks, water, ice cream etc. but we couldn't buy anything! Once we got to the top it was a bit anti-climatical, the church was nothing special and the view was smoggy. But it was a comical welcome to Colombia that we have been laughing about since.

One of our more positive memories of Cartagena was the Mercado de Bazurto. It is exactly what you expect to see in a foreign country and you can see some pictures below.

"foto! foto!" they yelled

Preparing lunch! Very tasty and you get a full plate for around $3 US

After Cartagena we moved on to Santa Marta. From there we went to Minca, for a hike to a waterfall and Palomino where we camped on the beach and hiked up a mountain with Inter-tubes that we then floated back down on in a river. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of the river float since we were in water but below are some pictures of the hike to the Waterfall and of the beach camping.