Santa Marta

An update mostly about food and a little bit about insects

It's our last day in Santa Marta and it's suffocatingly hot, although we've been drinking a lot more water since we found out you can buy it in a bag for much cheaper than a bottle. A 1.75 litre bottle of water is approx $2 and a 5L bag of water (though a little inconvenient) is much more affordable at $1.10. You get dehydrated here really quickly, mostly because of the heat, but also we've been doing a lot of walking and all the food here either is full of sugar or salt (or both).

It's a bit more expensive in Colombia for food than it is in Ecuador. In saying that, you can still eat pretty cheaply if you want to. Street food is cheap, if you don't mind a deep fried egg roll or cheesy dough ball for breakfast, or alternatively bags of fresh mango are about 70 cents. Then for lunch, it's $4 for a massive plate of rice and beans and fish/chicken/meat with soup as a starter and a glass of juice. One thing Colombians do really well is fresh juice. They sell lime juice and fresh fruit cocktails by the glass on the side of the street for about 70 cents and it's always nice and refreshing.

This morning I didn't wake up until 10am (we didn't really have any plans today). We had some muesli and yoghurt for breakfast and a black coffee (which is only 35 cents for a cup). It's so, so hot in our room that you always wake up in a feverish sweat, although I'm getting used to it by now. The showers are always the pipe-through-the-wall type with a single stream of cold water which is actually really nice in the heat.

There aren't too many insects in our hostel, although while we were in hammocks there were plenty of massive toads, spiders, cockroaches and even a baby boa constrictor (which was climbing into a boy's hammock, probably trying to find somewhere to curl up and go to sleep to digest the toad it had just eaten).

And to tie the topics of this post together (Colombia, food and insects), the specialty food in Barichara is "hormigas culonas", which is fried ants (literally "fat-bottomed ants"). Apparently they taste like a mixture of dirt and old coffee grounds. I probably won't be trying them.

Nicola

The Arrival of the Fourth Amiga

After three days of travelling on planes and buses, I arrived in Cartagena on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. I somehow got a flight that was 30mins earlier than my actual flight and then Stacey, Claire and Sylvie's flight was late so I was waiting at the airport for about three hours wondering whether I should be getting a cab and finding a hostel before it got dark. The airport had absolutely no customs of any sort so I literally picked up my bag off the conveyer belt and walked outside into the 40 degree heat.

I found the others in the end and we headed to the Medialuna hotel, a bit pricier than other hostels at $16 per night but really nice, with a pool, free wi-fi, free laundry and free coffee. Unfortunately we didn't get to experience the free laundry or free coffee because the next morning when we woke up there was absolutely no running water in the entire city of Cartagena. I asked the laundry woman when she thought the water might be working again and she said 'Don't know. Maybe tomorrow?"

We decided to go to Santa Marta, about three hours away on the bus. I got off the bus tired and confused and inadvertedly paid 5000 pesos for a packet of gum, which has been my biggest regret so far. 5000 pesos is almost $4, which is more than 5 times the price that it was actually worth. I bet the gum-selling woman who ripped me off just couldn't believe her luck when I actually paid it. Anyway we checked out a couple of hostels in the 'prostitute district' (apparently where the best hostels are). The first hostel we checked out was called the Hotel Titanic which was totally devoid of people but had a live iguana on the reception desk and some odd-looking animals in cages. We went across the road to the Hotel Miramar instad, which is only 8000 pesos (double the price of my packet of gum!) so about $6.50 a night each, plus about 50 cents each for internet. No air conditioning, which means it's almost impossible to sleep, but at least there's no weird animals in cages.

Nicola