Why NOBODY visits Colombia’s oldest city! (24 hours in Santa Marta)

Why NOBODY visits Colombia’s oldest city! (24 hours in Santa Marta)

We are currently standing on the  Caribbean coast of Colombia after   a bus from the Highland mountains to Palomino Palomino is a hippie town and it sits in the  Coast with not that much infrastructure has  

Like dirt roads nothing’s really paved there and a  lot of shacks that you’d go and have dinner in we   basically spent the day walking around exploring  all of the restaurants walking along the beach   with a bunch of dogs for way too long until we  could see the Sierra Nevada mountains which was  

So bizarre because we were standing sweating  on a beach and if you just turned looked past   all of the densely green forests there was a  mountain covered in snow it was pretty weird   it’s so bizarre seeing snow and sweating that  much the reason we went to Palomino is because  

It’s right next to Teyrona National Park which  is the park that you need to go to when you’re in   Colombia but we made one of our probably biggest  travel blunders we’ve ever made it’s a Tayrona   national park closes three times a year just for  environmental sustainability to give the plants  

And the wildlife a break from human activity  which is amazing love that what I don’t love is   that it’s in January in October and in June yeah  the very day we plan to go there is the first day  

Of its closure so we couldn’t wait around either  such a bummer because it’s something I was looking   forward to a lot it looks like an amazing place  to visit but instead we made some quick decisions   and today we are spending the day in Colombia’s  oldest city Santa Marta even though Santa Marta  

Is the oldest town in all of Colombia when you  read on blogs about what there is to do here   three of the top 10 things to actually leave the  city could be because we’re surrounded by pretty   amazing things like the Tayrona national Park  we talked about a city called Minka that just  

Looks so beautiful and also this is the jumping  off point for the lost city Trek at least one   of those top 10 things to do is to come down to  this part here this is the Malecon which I believe  

Translates pier in Spanish but it’s effectively  an Esplanade that goes all the way along the   coast nice to look at the sea without having to  get Sandy like we did in Palomino it’s giving   Waikiki Hawaii meets nha trang Vietnam I agree  any City on the beach is giving Waikiki Hawaii

This is one of those beaches that dots along the  malecon it’s really really wide but the sand is   not white and it’s a little bit dirty seems like  they’ve tried to clean it up though it’s very much  

Like a resort town like the resorts are really  nice they sit on the beach but you’d probably   just stay in your Resort pool one really cool  thing about Colombia is in the morning there’s   all these coffee vendors walking around with their  little carts and they have so many different pots  

On board I think there’s coffee maybe tea or just  hot water and hot chocolate we went for a coffee   each this morning which cost 3,000 pesos which  is about a dollar for two tiny little coffees   they are burning hot which sucks because the  temperatures also really really hot so I am  

Sweating so much and we can’t even get relief by  jumping in the ocean because neither of us have   bathers which is like a side goal of today we want  to go to some market area in hopes that they sell  

Bathers because the next town we’re going to we  are definitely going to want to hop in the water really really good quite sweet which makes it your  own I just wish he’s somehow sold iced coffees   this statue is of Rodrigo de bastidas who was the  founder of Santa Marta he’s a conquistador from  

Spain who came here with a bunch of guys and was  known as the noble conquistor because he wanted   to keep relations with the locals good because he  wanted to live here but he ended up trading heaps  

With the locals getting heaps of gold which he  wouldn’t share with any of his guys and he forbid   his guys from beating up locals and taking their  gold so they stabbed him they literally stabbed  

Him in his sleep and he died it’s a bit of a  rough ending but he also had a bunch of slaves   so I don’t know how Noble he really was cool  statue though there’s been like a handful of  

Cities since we’ve been traveling around the  world that have this sort of thing that like   9 of the top things to do are leaving the city  but if you are sticking around in Santa Marta one  

Of the main things you can do is come and hang in  park de Bolivar which is named after Simon Bolivar   they have a statue of him here as well and that  is because he actually died in Santa Marta and I  

Think his house is here somewhere that you can go  visit so we’re sitting in the park super exciting   it’s actually really cool in here because there’s  so many trees covering there are so many benches   and what’s crazy is that later in the afternoon  it gets packed like these benches will be full  

There will be people sitting on the sidewalk just  because it’s so much cooler in here than out in   the sun this sort of connects the beach over  there to the market that we’re trying to make  

Our way to now but we did just need a break from  the heat so it’s been nice chilling out in here   there’s also heaps that animals like what looks  like a woodpecker I’ve never seen that before  

We have decided it’s far too hot so we’ve been  walking around Carrera 3 which is sort of like the   pedestriany really cool restaurants Cafe Street  in Santa Marta and we’ve stopped to hopefully get  

An iced coffee or like a cold juice or just some  cold water thrown on my face I really thought we   would be getting iced coffees here because that’s  what we usually get but that coffee on the beach   kind of satisfied me and they have slushies  so I’m getting a cherry slushie and Emily’s  

Getting a strawberry slushie and also one cold  water because we need that more than anything   and then we’ll go to the market and get  bathers it’s as if they’ve gotten a bunch   of frozen strawberries and Blended them  together it’s delicious and very very cold

This Market we’re going to is actually where we  got dropped off when we came to Santa Marta from   Palomino its absolutely hectic we had all our  bags and we were not ready for it then but we  

Knew we were going to come back I know they sell  fruit and veg and they should have a few clothes   so hopefully we can find some bathers this is  some options for you do you like the pineapples

Thank you okay that was so easy I think you’re  supposed to haggle a little bit here but   20,000 peso like that’s less than ten dollars  so happy with that let’s try and find you some   base we’re in a clothing store now which  I thought would be more promising but I’m  

Finding it difficult to know where the bikinis  would be like if this was a store in Australia   I think I’d be able to find it quite quickly  but for some reason here I’m like overwhelmed   with this music playing I have no idea there’s  women’s men’s kids stuff all mixed together

No luck I think maybe I’m a bit more  conservative when it comes to my bikini bottoms the hunt continues okay in my size in my favorite  color and they were on sale   that took a bit longer than expected  so it’s time to get something to eat  

Thankfully here they’ve got something called  menu of the day or menu Del Dia which we’re   seeing everywhere and we haven’t tried yet we  did see a place where we were last night that   sold it that looked quite nice so we’re going  there oh really nice we are on like one of the  

Main squares here and the menu of the day is  only 20,000 pesos which is under ten dollars the things that we’re seeing everywhere around  here isn’t originally a Spanish thing it was   actually enforced in law in Spain back in the  day the dictator who probably because he’s a  

Dictator wasn’t a very nice guy he did one  cool thing which was make sure that workers   of the country were able to get a fair meal at a  fair price so you normally get a choice of meat  

A soup an Arepa in some cases a juice and some  rice and sometimes a plantain so we can’t read   Spanish so we don’t really know what we’re  getting on this one all we know is that we  

Think it’s going to be fish rather than a  choice of meat I guess because it’s a Port   City Fish makes sense it’s like quite fresh our  first course is soup just judging from the color   it looks like some sort of pumpkin soup which  sounds delicious even though it’s really hot

Is that almost like chili Curry sort of  flavors yum first course is down it was   amazing kind of already I can see  it getting worth it like worth the   money it was delicious oh I’ve never had  plantains in chip form like this before

Yeah now we have our main dish which  is like a fried almost battered looking   fish some rice plantain chips and a  salad meal of the day is the way to go   I don’t know what that flavor is but  it’s yummy it’s almost like coconutty  

I never order fish but every time I have it  I’m pleased that I’ve had it because I know   that it’s really good for me and it always  tastes better than I think it’s gonna taste delicious couldn’t even finish it meal of  the day wow it’s a great option the day  

Is not over there’s one more thing we need  to see it involves services and the Sun the   Escalade is so much more lively at sunset time  there’s people dancing working out swimming it’s not a bad way to end 24 hours in  Santa Marta I know people probably don’t  

Normally stop over here from what  we found blog posts will tell you   to go somewhere else I have quite  enjoyed our day next up Cartagena

We had dreams of exploring Tayrona National Park but we happened to plan our trip at the worst possible time! The park was closed so instead we decided to spend 24 hours in Santa Marta!

Filmed 03/06/2023 | Santa Marta, Colombia

*Our Colombia travel map* – https://tinyurl.com/ColombiaGoogleMaps
*FREE Travel Colombia PDF* – https://tinyurl.com/colombiatravelguide

BEST tours to consider in Colombia!
🏖️ Rosario Island Tour – https://gyg.me/POLRiqZ7
⛰️ Guatape Tour with food – https://gyg.me/ZzFnt7Le
🚲 Bogota city Bike tour – https://gyg.me/2yJLdwW8

━━━━━

• get *postcards* from us every month https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jordanandemily
• *income/expenditure* monthly updates: https://www.jordanandemily.com.au
• our *vlogging gear* – https://www.jordanandemily.com.au/vlogginggear

2023 Travel Vlogs https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLN9JwrZhnty6QEOOGXoJiQxo2qqhuTVD6
Colombia Travel Vlogs https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLN9JwrZhnty43tKp6jrO7fRd45S0DjoDR
Most Recent Video https://youtu.be/chX7MdAceKA

━━━━━

*BUSINESS ENQUIRIES*
hello@jordanandemily.com.au

*SUPPORT US DIRECTLY*
• Buy us a coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jordanandemily
• Donate directly https://paypal.me/jordanandemily93

*SOCIAL PIPES*
• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jordanandemilytravel
• facebook https://www.facebook.com/jordanandemily
• tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@jordanandemily_

*RESOURCES WE USE*
• https://linktr.ee/jordanandemi

━━━━━
24 hours in Santa Marta Colombia

00:00 – Why we’re in Santa Marta
01:25 – Santa Marta Malecon (Esplanade)
02:15 – Beaches in Santa Marta + Morning Coffee
03:31 – The founder of Santa Marta (Rodrigo de Bastidas)
04:09 – Bolivar park (Parque Bolivar)
05:09 – Santa Marta streets & Drink break
06:16 – Mercado Público de Santa Marta
07:39 – Menu Del Dia at Bijao
09:54 – Cevezas and the sun

#santamarta #colombia #TravelVlog

FTC disclaimer: some links in the descriptions of my videos may be affiliate links which means i receive a small commission. it is no cost to you to use the links, it is totally free.