Looking for Juan Valdez ....

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Friday, January 25th - Santa Marta, Colombia.  Santa Marta is the 3rd largest city in Colombia.  It is also the oldest city ... founded n the 1500's, I think.  This is according to Jose, our tour guide, who also said most of the male population in Colombia is named "Jose".  Can you guess the most popular women's name?  .... Maria.

And, just where is Juan Valdez?  According to Jose, most of the coffee is grown in the mountains of the surrounding Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains.  We didn't climb that high up, but we did tour Tayrona National Park, and we just made it in.  It closes in 3 days.  This is the end of their high season, so we are happy we got to visit.  

We awoke to calm seas, praise God, Juan Valdez and the Capt!  From our port to the park was about 1 hour drive.  We saw a part of life not usual to us, as most of the homes nearest the port looked to be about half the size of the Maersk shipping containers that are literally everywhere around the shipyard.  Seriously, they look like storage units we rent in the US.  They are multi-colored, and some share the same walls .... looks like a colorful game of tetris.  Roaming around were dogs, chickens and even a horse was seen just walking down the road.  Also,roaming loose were motorbikes of every shape and size!  Most were outfitted to carry every kind of cargo imaginable.  The traffic laws are just "suggestions" as several motorbikes passed our tour van to either side of us in a space barely big enough for a motorbike!  Looked like something out of "Mad Max" at times.  As we got near to the park, the houses got bigger, nicer, and there were more and more restaurants, stores, etc.

When we arrived at the Tayrona National Park, we saw a jungle, lots of hikers, and thatched roofs.  We saw horse back riders taking tours complete with accompanying donkeys, loaded with supplies (again, no sign of Juan Valdez).  Jose took some of us on a couple of short hikes.  The rest of the group just went to the beach - We chose well.

Jose led us through the tropical jungle where he showed us termite nests large as Halloween pumpkins!  Forget Leroy and Vialula ever being on "Naked and Afraid" - these were some serious termites!  He showed us low hanging fruit, growing on trees, which were pumpkins!  Then, he led us over to the beach with huge rocks and an awesome booming Caribbean ocean!  Beautiful! The beach was very hot, and the sand was very grainy and brown, not like the sugar sand of the beaches at home, but awesome.  


Then he led us through the same forest up a hill to a vista that was breath-taking.   He took us around a rocky ledge to for an even more magnificent view!   You could see the ocean, the beach, the hills, the mountains .... all from our vantage point.  It was a wonderful hike, and our journey ended with some fresh papaya in a lovely thatched-roof pavilion with beautiful flowers all around!

Enough for today.  Tomorrow is Panama, and Leroy is a fascinated by a good canal as I am a beautiful flower - til then ...

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