Scuba Diving in Colombia

After our jungle tour, we spent one more night at our hostel in Manaus before heading North to Peurto La Cruz, Venezuela on Saturday night. In the jungle, we met an English couple who were thinking of going to Colombia as well and we said they were more than welcome to come along with us through Venezuela. In addition, two other British travellers joined us, so our group was up to 6 for our epic bus journey to Santa Marta, Colombia.
Apart from dabbling in the black market to take advantage of the fantastic exchange rate ($1US=5bolivars, whereas the offical rate is 1 to 2.2), our Venezuelan experience was more expensive than anticipated, but we made it through safely. We left Manaus 6pm on Saturday and arrived in Santa Marta at 2pm on Tuesday. Epic it was!

Looking towards Taganga from the rooftop terrace of our Hotel in Santa Marta

After this huge journey, we were pretty keen on just relaxing for a couple of days and enjoying the Caribbean sea, sun and breeze. The breeze is more of a strong wind at night, and it is hard to keep drinks from blowing over whilst outdoors.

They bay where we spent our beach days.

We spent 3 nights in Santa Marta and two days in Taganga at the beach. Taganga is a little fishing town 5km north of Santa Marta where there are an abudance of cheap diving schools. We certainly wanted to take advantage of this, and luckily our group of 6 all had our open water diving certificates so we got a great price for our advance open water.

Our dive squad on the last day of fun dives.

The course included 5 skill dives: advance buoyancy control, drift/current dive, deep dive, navigation and night dive. These we did in the span of two days and than today celebrated with 2 fun dives just enjoying the scenery of fish and coral.

A tardé ser in Santa Marta Bay

On our first night in Santa Marta, we enjoyed a spectacular sunset and also met a local who I shall quote. "What are you doing in this dangerous country? If you don´t be careful, you might fall in love with Colombia." That about sums up how dangerous it really is. The major cities and highways are well monitored by the police. On the highway, the number of check stops is almost irritating, but really it is nice to know how well monitored everything is and helps us feel safe. Most of the people are very friendly and welcoming and we are looking forward to the rest of our time in this country.
Perhaps this week we will go on a 6 day trek to the Lost City of the Tayrona Indians. Would be a little Indiana Jonesish.