Santa Marta
After a few days in Medellin, it was time to head back to the airport to fly to Santa Marta. The Medellin airport is so much easier to navigate than the Bogota airport. Literally walked right through security, and there were only a handful of gates. Love easy check-ins! It was the second internal flight I took in Colombia, and initially I wasn’t sure what to expect with the smaller carriers, but Avianca is great. Puts our US domestic carriers to shame! It was a short 1 hour flight from Medellin to the northern coastal town of Santa Marta.
According to Wikipedia, It was founded in July 29, 1525 by the Spanish conqueror Rodrigo de Bastidas, which makes it the oldest remaining city in Colombia (Santa María la Antigua del Darién was founded earlier, but abandoned soon after). Located between the Santa Marta Mountains and the Caribbean Sea, the city is a popular tourist destination due to its history, colonial architecture, beaches and nearby nature reserves.
You can tell you are in a laid back coastal town as soon as you land. The airport is open to the outdoors, and it was a breeze getting in and out. We took a taxi from the airport to the main town area, and checked in to our hostel. It was early afternoon at this point, so I walked around the areas near Plaza San Francisco and Parque Bolivar (there are a lot of statues devoted to Bolivar in this country!) and took some pictures. Gorgeous architecture. I just enjoyed taking it all in.
I noticed that the people in this area are more outgoing and talkative! Many of the people have dark hair, deep tans, and Caribbean features, so I blended in a little, which was actually really nice. A lot of people assumed I spoke Spanish… until I opened my mouth! And then everyone was curious as to where I was from. It was a great conversation starter, and allowed me to practice my Espanol!
Kavi360 
What a pleasure reading this blog, again many thanks for sharing!
Santa María la Antigua del Darién was abandoned after Panama City was founded, but it was an important establishment by Vasco Balboa, who was the first European to cross Panama from Darien to see the Pacific Ocean. Today there is still a large and lovely park in San Diego named Bolboa Park. I noticed from your blogs that there are many statues, plazas named after Bolivar, I think it shows that the Colombia people are open minded to have so many places named after a Venezuelan! And maybe the people in South America in General are like that, thinking about the country named Bolivia, which gave the world all that unbelievable amount of silver that kept the economy going.
Happy traveling!
Thanks for the historical info, Eddie! Glad you are still enjoying the blog!
Santa Marta looks like HEAVEN!! Can’t wait to see/read more!
You would love it! Just did another post on Santa Marta, and more to come!
If you can go to parke tayrona. Go Kavitha, It is beautiful. Besos
I did, and it was amazing!