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Well... we have left Colombia behind. We headed to Santa Marta on the 10th, and from there to Taganga, a little fishing village about 5 minutes from Santa Marta. Not much to see in Santa Marta itself - most of the tourist infrastructure there revolves around the Lost City, which takes a week to hike in and see, so we weren?t really interested. Our first evening in Taganga was quite nice - sat at an outdoor restaurant and watched the sunset. First impression of the town was that it was quite pretty - set in the hills, very small bay, buildings us the hills to the winding road out of town. The next day we had a morning swim, breakfast, and then headed into Santa Marta to find an place to change travellers?cheques and a grocery store. For some reason, people like to block the road into Santa Marta with bags of trash and broken TVs and such - can?t figure out the reason, as we were able to get out of the cab, walk across, and catch another cab without anyone bothering us. Quite strange, and annoying. Finished up our errands just as it started pouring rain - got soaked just running from the cab to our hotel, then spent the better part of the afternoon hiding in our room, playing crib, and eating the groceries that we were very happy we?d just purchased, as it was raining far to hard to go outside. I ventured out when it calmed down a bit to find internet, which was painfully slow and didn?t work very well, and to book a diving trip. The dirt roads had turned to mud pits, which was a little unpleasant. Had a beer on a patio, and then it started raining in earnest again, so back to our room. Had a nice dinner at the same restaurant (they made fantastic crepes, and had the best coconut pie ever), where we ran into Kevin and Juan Carlos. They were staying in Santa Marta, and had arrived in Taganga just after the rain stopped, at which point everything was rather gross and muddy.
Up early on Sunday for a quick morning swim, then off to the dive shop. We headed out around 10 - eleven of us with three dive masters - eight people were finishing up their PADI courses. We dove off the coast of Tayrona park, about 25 minutes away by speedboat. Our first dive was around a big rock a little ways off the coast. We went down in a group of 4, which was really nice. Visibility wasn?t fantastic - the rain had stirred up a lot of debris, so we could see about 25-30 feet, so it wasn?t awful. The diving itself was fantastic. So much down there to see! Huge brain corals the size of trucks, fan coral, that spindly coral. And fish everywhere - thousands of them. We saw pufferfish, zebrafish, black fish with white polka dots, miniature fluorescent blue and yellow fish, yellow and blue striped ones, lots of eels (I got right up to one that was sticking its head out of a hole), lobsters, and tons of fish that I?ve never seen before. Anenomes that were balck and white striped, purple and orange urchins, barracudas. The guide poked his finger into a hole, and a little sea-spider type thing crawled onto his arm, then he put it on my hand and it crawled right up my arms - pretty cool! We were down for about 40 minutes, circling this big rock, and I was just blown away by how much there was to see. Everywhere you looked there was something new. The only awkward part was that the fin killed my foot, so I could only swim with one foot, which meant using my arms, too, and flailing a little, but it seemed to do the job.
Once everyone was up, we headed for a little cove on the coast for lunch, where we ate sandwhiches and fruit in a hut up on the cliff, then jumped off the cliff and swam back to the boat to head back out.
Or second dive was right off the coast - there?s a pretty strong current in some areas there, so it seems safer to stay close to land. And the cliffs drop right off, so there?s plenty to see. All the same fish again, all over the place - sometimes big schools of a few hundred electric blue fish would swim all around us, which was pretty cool. We ended up in the current at one point, and just rode with it - it was really fast, and kind of wierd to see all this stuff flying by without doing any work at all. We went down a little canyon in the coral, which was pretty cool. The best part, though, was when the guide waved his hand in front of a crevice in the cliff, and a little octopus climbed out onto his arm! It?s body was about the size of a softball, and its tentacles weren?t very long at all. It sat quite happily on the guide?s arm, while he petted it, and then we got to pet it too (very smooth). It was a little put out when it was time for us to go, and the guide was nudging it off his arm - it finally squirted him with ink and took off! We were down for about 40 minutes again. Overall, 2 fantastic dives.
The sky was getting black as we were coming in, and it started pouring as I was heading back to the hotel. I?d barely got to the hotel when the thunder and lightening started - it went on for hours, and was unbelievably loud. We sat on our little porch for awhile (careful to keep our feet off the ground!), and sat in awe of the booming clouds above us, and the constant flashes of lightning. At one point, we both went silent as we watched a huge streak of lightning that lasted for a long time, and had obviously touched the ground. As we were questioning the wisdom of sitting out under a metal roof in a storm this intense, there was more sheet lightning, and a wierd crackling all around us - that time it was as close as it could be without actually hitting us, which is when we gathered up our things and fled inside... to our sweltering room where the air con was off because the power was out. We waited a few hours before venturing out, to find the town an even bigger mess than before. Bought some more water, and some candles, and some wine (for Erika). Found a place that was still open, where I had a banana split and a beer, and Erika had fruit salad and a glass of wine. Then headed for the hotel, as it was soon to be pitch black and the whole town had no power. The storm had eased quite a bit, so we went back out to sit outside, where it was pleasantly cool, and spent the evening listening to distant thunder and watching lightning all around us, and being fairly happy that the walls around our hotel were topped with broken glass, since, as Erika put it, s**t was going down out there, and we wanted no part of it!
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