Taganga Episode II: The Town

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This week is "Tagonga Week" at Xave's Xlog. Check it out:

Taganga Episode I: The Trailer

One of the things I've tried to do with this blog is avoid all the cliche travel blog-isms, and write entries that are somehow just a little different and unique. I think I'm going to have to abandon that modus operandi for Taganga Week, though, because I went to a cool place and took pictures and I want to tell you about it and show you them, respectively.

We'll start with a quick post about the town of Taganga - quick because it's 10 to 6 and as I found out last night, when I stayed at school past 7, the buses basically stop running at 6. (I had to take a much more expensive cab.)

Taganga is a small town of 5000 residents just 5 km down the road from the touristy Santa Marta. It is situated in a little cove like you see below:


Taganga isn't really touristy, not on the same level as Santa Marta anyway, as I very hastily observed on my bus ride through the city. Taganga still has a lot of foreigners though; I saw about 10 times as many as I've seen in my entire time in Barranquilla, a city of over a million. It seemed like Taganga itself isn't the destination, though, so it escapes some of the tourstiness.

This is the hostel I stayed at. The owner is Santiago, a Colombian guy who spent almost 10 years as a civil engineer in Canada, so his English is very good. Seems like he's living the dream - he lives in a beach town not 10 minutes away from a utopic national park, organizes parties/trips with the guests at his hostel every couple days, his wife is, of course, unbelievably beautiful, and his son is one of the coolest 10 year olds in the world, and will be covered in much more detail later this week.

Beyond the ping pong table is a pool table, and beyond that a foosball table. The trifecta. All were in very good condition - seems to be a theme of Santiago's endeavours. I played some of the first two with the two American guys I met on the bus from Barranquilla to Santa Marta and subsequently spent most of the weekend with.

Hammocks are all over the place around here - if you want to stay in the aforementioned Tayrona National Park overnight, hammocks are one of the (and the cheapest) types of accommodation offered.

The hostel also featured a really nice pool - what made it great was the existence of a bonafide deep end, a rarity these days and 2 showers constantly flowing into the pool (if they were rainbow coloured fountains, it truly would have been a paradise). Other than that it was your average hostel - drinks, do it yourself kitchen, decent beds.

Okay look guys, I know this post is not my highest quality, but I gotta bounce. It's 6:03, I don't want to have to take another cab.

Later!