Improvised.

JG: A few days ago, we consulted our travel books and resources and, instead of following through with their suggestions, decided to heed the guidance of our new friend (restauranteur mentioned in previous post), and head to a fairly secluded beach resort about an hour out of Santa Marta, complete with private cabanas and the beach at our disposal. Amidst his busy schedule, he even drove us to the bus station and refused any compensation, bidding us safe travels and a good time, and negotiated with a taxi driver to take us straight to the resort for little more than the price of a bus. What he didn't tell us...

There was no cell service, let alone wifi. The staff of one spoke no English. Not hello, not goodbye, not our-bed-is-infested-with-small-living-creatures, nada. The setting was nice enough and I could throw a baseball to the beach from our bed, but it was real bare bones - as Sandy articulated, it made the Flintstones look like the Jetsons. And the bathrooms - oh, the bathrooms...

No electricity before 3pm. We had concrete floors and concrete bed frames mounted into the floor, with mattresses that resembled sponges. Really thin sponges. The cabana had no doorknob, and at one point, we even walked in on an unexpected visitor (see pic - he was a big one) which elicited a 110-decibel shriek from Sandy and who was immediately ushered out. The sea was too rough to swim in, but the sun shined endlessly and there wasn't a soul in sight for two straight days. We visited the Tayrona national park one day, rode horseback for half of it, knocked out 3 books between the two of us, and I slept in a hammock for the first time and and as I explicitly set out to do on this trip.

Not knowing how to actually get back to Santa Marta, we hitchhiked back to town with a Colombian who (shockingly) spoke no English, had a hatchback full of ripe bananas, and wiped his windshield while driving with a dirty rag he had resting on his center console. A car that clearly wouldn't have passed any inspections as the odometer stayed at 0 km/hr the entire ride. A four-hour bus ride later to Cartagena, we quickly found a place to stay yesterday afternoon before our flight this morning, and we are now wishing farewell to northern Columbia. We've already started on a regimen of altitude sickness pills, as Bogota is ~8,500 ft above sea level and it likely gets higher from there as we tour Peru and probably Bolivia (you'll never believe what the plan is there - more later on that in an upcoming post).

SS: I can handle a lot when it comes to traveling but sharing my room with a crab is not happening - a gecko maybe but not a snapping crab. The kicker - at 50 a night, this was one of the most expensive places we had stay at yet.

John had his first horseback ride and it happened to be a treacherous one! I swear I don't know horses could make it through such a steep rocky path. What an experience with a few Yikes! moments.

The ride back to Santa Marta was interesting. John failed to mention that we were waiting to flag down a bus on the side of the road (the official bus stop maneuver) when a random old man pulled over screaming "Santa Marta - Santa Marta" and the local landscaper, that raked one pile to another over and over, encouraging us to go was enough to make us believers. Luckily this fulfilled my desire to hitchhike!

The interior portion of the doors came off when you opened them, the radio was clearly stolen, nothing on the dash worked, my shoulder stuck to the seat, the car shook uncontrollably around corners, and I swear he paid off the traffic police for whatever was in the trunk. Not to mention the man with a crutch that he picked up halfway to Santa Marta. Safe and sound - no problemo!