One of the most interesting buildings you should visit is right in the heart of the city, the whitewashed Cathedral Basilica of Santa Marta. The historic center of Santa Marta is very compact, and you don't need to carry a guidebook to see all the attractions. We have a soft spot for beautiful colonial towns on the shores of the Caribbean sea, and we always look forward to visiting one of them. Here is our travel guide including the best things to see and do in Santa Marta, Colombia, and in its surroundings. Santa Marta is a colonial town in Colombia, at least the historic part of the city, and even though it is not that well-known such as Barichara or Guatape, we believe you will find it captivating.īased on our experience, we would seriously recommend you to combine the visit of the city with places such as Tayrona National Park, Minca, or if you are feeling adventurous, focus on Lost City Trek.Įven though Santa Marta is worth your time, some of the best places lie outside the city's limits, that is good to know when creating your Colombia itinerary. ![]() The colonial city center of Santa Marta is still well preserved, but the beach is lined with modern multi-story buildings. On top of that, maybe because of that, the city is full of contrasts. The city is actually the first Spanish settlement in Colombia and one of the oldest colonial cities in South America. It is a place worth exploring, and when walking the streets, it is good to feel Santa Marta with all your senses.Įxcept for visiting the best things to do, looking for the top attractions and must-visit places, you will also hear beating the wild and rough heart of Santa Marta. We wanted to use Santa Marta as a base for our Tayrona National Park adventure, but soon we found out Santa Marta is pretty interesting. More than five hundred years later, from the moment of arrival of Spaniards, Santa Marta is still an important port in Colombia and now is even more popular than ever as tourists use it as a base for their adventures to its beautiful surroundings. In the next several centuries, Santa Marta played a significant role in Colombia's history, mainly due to its strategic location.Īlso, if you have heard of Simon Bolivar, aka El Libertador, then you will probably find interesting the fact that he died here in Santa Marta. The city of Santa Marta was officially founded in 1525 by a Spanish conquistador Rodrigo de Bastidas, who arrived at the Colombian shores in 1501, and left some soldiers in the bay of Santa Marta before he ventured off only to come back twenty years later. The reason is simple, most of the records were destroyed throughout the centuries. Stories like this always remind us that when everything is not served on a silver plate, we usually appreciate it more.Īlthough the indigenous people had been living in the area long before the pre-Columbian era, historians still do not know much about the first inhabitants. And we must tell you, those arepas were SO tasty, and that's something we for sure wouldn't say with a full stomach.Īs you can see, our arrival in Santa Marta was pretty tiring, but this is also what traveling is about, and situations like this usually create the best memories. There is a simple stall on the street with mouth-watering arepas. We are so exhausted from the trip, that we decide we need to walk it off and find something to eat. When we arrive in Santa Marta, the driver drops us off on the highway without a word, still a few kilometers from the hotel, so we need to take a taxi.įinally, we can check-in. It's the constant stopping and picking up people that makes the last part of our journey so challenging. ![]() The local bus is crowded though we were lucky enough to grab the last seats. It takes us at least another forty-five minutes to get to Santa Marta, and if we described the previous bus as battered, then we don't have words for this local one. We made our way through the crowd, touts, taxi drivers, and traffic, and we finally found the bus that goes to Santa Marta, though we are not sure where exactly the bus stops. We feel a little bit drowsy from the long journey, and the tainted air from the fumes of the cars is not helping. Without any warning, we are being pushed out of the bus on the buzzing street. Suddenly, the battered bus comes to a stop, and a man jumps in and calls Cienaga repeatedly. Finally, we arrive in Cienaga, where we have to change the bus, as this one continues to Barranquilla.
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