The last couple days here in Mariposa (las afueras de Santa Marta) have been really enjoyable. I am staying in a hostel called The Dreamer, and is definitely one of the best hostels I've stayed in.
The rooms are shaped in a U form with a pool in the middle. An open air kitchen, pool table, and bar closes off the U shape, creating a nice courtyard lined with hammocks.
Each room has the name of a different country painted above the door, and a few symbols particular to that country painted beside each corresponding door.
The first night I got here, I decide to keep to myself a bit, recharge from the craziness of Cartagena.
I ended up joining in the hostel-wide game of Killer Pool (basically everyone has 3 lives, take turns knocking balls in, lose a life if you miss, last one standing wins). I ended up winning in the finals against a coke head from Lake Tahoe who works at the hostel.
The next day, I took a small rickety-ass bus 40 minutes away to Playa Los Angeles. Myself and my two Argentinian friends who I had met the night before squished onto this tightly packed bus full of people bringing supplies up to their villages in the mountains. Sacks of potatoes all over the floor, a mattress attached to the ceiling, a box of fish that stunk to the high heavens, and then there were the colombians heading up into the foothills with us.
We past shack-towns with dirt floors, people getting on and off regularly. One thing that remained constant was the kindness of these poverty stricken people. They'd ask where were from, where we were going etc, always willing to lend their opinion of places to go.
We hopped off the bus after about 40 minutes and took the only nearby path that we could see into the forest. It looked pretty dodgy at first, and doubts about this place streamed through my head.
We walked for a bit and finally reached a bit of a clearing. Plants of red, purple, orange, yellow, and green lined this path we were on. Before I knew it, we were seeing lizards, a flying squirrel, a bunny (the kind that people usually have as pets), an a monkey eating berries.
If this hadn't already erased my doubts about this place, our first view of the beach took me for a whirl.
The best way I can describe it in the fewest words is "Jurassic Park." Forests and mountains creeping all the way down to the beach, mountains in the distance, and not a soul in sight.
I went for a long walk taking pictures down the beach, and noticed that my footprints were the only ones on the beach. So awesome.
We headed back to the road at the end of the day, and waited for a bit. Before long, a coach bus was approaching fast around the curve. We gave the universal signal for a lift, and the bus came screeching to a halt. We hustled up to the bus and asked how much it would cost to get back to Santa Marta.
"12,000 pesos cada uno"
After negotiating the price down to 5,000 ($2.50 USD), we climbed aboard and got comfy.
Everything is negotiable here. And it's extremely easy to bargain. Taxi drivers and such are used to people bargaining so they set the price higher than it should be. Just tell them it's too expensive, and low ball them. They'll settle somewhere in between real quick.
The next day me and the 2 gals headed off to Playa Blanca. An english dude names Rupert moved into my room that morning, so I invited him along.
Hopped in a cab, went to Rodadero, and negotiated a price for una lancha to playa blanca. Few minutes later, we were cruising in the carribean heading to a beautiful bay nestle between two points.
This is a very popular beach for middle class Colombians, and was absolutely packed.
Boats coming to and the beach nonstop, so many people in the water you could hardly move, and people walking around trying to sell you stuff all day.
I much prefer the much more relaxing beach experience. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed every second of Playa Blanca, I just imagined how awesome the beach would be prior to such exploitation.
We returned back to the hostel, made a huge salad with my boy Rupert, and got going on some rum.
He left for La Ciudad Perdida today. 3 nights, 4 days. Apparently some of the expedition companies take you to a cocaine plant. Sounds pretty crazy to me.
Anyways I think im going to do that next week sometime. There's so much to do here, I see myself staying for a solid couple weeks. La Parque Nacional Tayrona has 20-some beaches, and is 75 times the size of Central Park. It's also filled with the second amount of biodiversity in the world.
I'm at a crossroads concerning Colombia so far. I'm tempted to begin fabricating horror stories just so people will keep thinking Colombia is an incredibly dangerous place, just so I can selfishly enjoy this country with the rest of the lucky souls who are getting in before the tourism absolutely takes off and complete exploits everything.
I can't do that though. Colombians deserve to have the negative image of their country to vanish and be replaced with one that portrays how wonderful this country really is.
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