Taganga

Day 1 – Dusty Little Town

We had booked a bus that picked you up from your hostel and delivered directly to your hostel in Taganga which was a result. So at 8am we boarded a tiny mini bus where we discovered there was even less leg room than usual (pic doesn’t do it justice) so we crammed in for the 6-7hr journey (Glenn hardly complained).

After a midway pee/pit stop, we arrived in Taganga around 2:30 and after the driver getting a bit lost (it’s only a tiny village) he set us off the bus and pointed in the general direction of where he thought our hostel was.

After a bit of bumping our bags along hot dusty roads, a kindly local took pity on us and walked us to the hostel. The hostel itself was pretty basic but a nice vibe with low level music and hammocks. It was blisteringly hot so we decided to have our ‘welcome to Taganga’ beer at the hostel before venturing into town.

 

We got chatting to a fellow brit called Bev, who was a teacher from Brighton who was traveling South America on her own. Before we knew it, it was evening so we walked into town with Bev as she pointed out the best places to eat etc and said our goodbyes as she was catching a night bus.

We then headed towards the beach area to find something to eat, as it was a Friday, it was pretty packed with locals from the neighbouring town, Santa Marta.  We had a bite to eat and decided to call it a night and agreed we would explore Taganga properly in the morning.

 Day 2 – Bookings

Getting up at a reasonable hour we went to the communal area/kitchen where we heard that it was a self-service breakfast, which would be OK apart from we seemed to be last in the queue to use the cooking facilities (a hot plate over a couple of gas hobs).  About ¾ hour later we finally got to cook ourselves some fried eggs on toast.

Breakfast done we then headed into the town with the mission of booking ourselves a scuba diving trip as Tanganga was renowned for being the cheapest place in South America for diving.  So we checked out a couple of places which were highly recommended on trip advisor, then tried three or four more places that were a bit cheaper.

After walking around getting very hot we stopped for a quick drink whilst we made a decision on which company to go with.  In the end we decided to go back to the highly recommended outfit and managed to get them to come down on price a bit, so we booked two dives with them for the next day.

As we had sorted that out we noticed a small travel agency close by so we decided to check out what information they had on the National park (Tayrona).  It turned out the lady in there had very good English and she told us all about the National park (we were lucky as it was closing for a month at the end of January) and also about a small town up the road (Palimino)from it that was worth a visit.  She recommended that we just booked a bus ticket to the park and then make all our other arrangements when we got there, so we just bought the bus ticket for us.

It was now early afternoon and blisteringly hot (in the 30’s?) so we headed for the beach and quickly found a beach restaurant/bar that did fairly cheap beers.  So we found a seat in the relative shade and ordered some drinks and sat and people watched.  As it was a weekend the beach was very busy with locals and only a few tourists.

 

Once the heat had got too much for us we stripped off and went for a swim.  The bay was a pretty little crescent shape with very calm water, which was also a very refreshing temperature. So we splashed around in the water for a while until we had cooled off a bit.

Still being very hot we dried off on the beach before heading back to the shade of the bar whilst supping a few ice cold beers.  Whilst we sat there we were entertained (not) by some locals practicing their circus skill’s, a dancing hobo/rubbish collector picking up trash from the beach with his feet and a very large Iguana that had taken up residence in a nearby tree.

 

 

We sat there until the sun went down and the bar started packing up for the day at which point our stomachs were rumbling so we headed off in search of food.

Being lazy we headed towards our accommodation and found the restaurant championed by our hostel that we got a free cocktail for visiting.  It was an Italian (Not cheese hating Shell’s favorite cuisine), so I settled for a fairly decent Pizza whilst Shelll tucked into some non-cheesy pasta.

With our appetite now satisfied we headed back to the hostal where we had a couple of beers in the common area before heading for a fairly early night as we had diving in the morning.

Day 3 – Dive 13 & 14

Getting up early and skipping breakfast we got ready and headed down to the dive centre.  We were introduced to our dive master, Ja from Egypt and then we were taken to collect all our gear and put our wetsuits on.

We waited around for around ½ hour whilst everyone got ready and then we headed down to the beach carrying our kit and then boarded the boat with about 10 other people.

The boat ride was a bit bumpy but not too bad and soon we were pulling up into a shallow bay where about 4 of the divers were getting out as they were doing their PADI course.  We then headed across the bay a bit further until we pulled up near a rocky island where we were given the dive briefing.

After the briefing we set up all our kit and it wasn’t too long before we were putting it on and rolling backwards over the side of the boat.  On the first dive there was three of us, the dive master and an Irish lad who was assisting the dive master as he was training to be one.

On the first dive it is always where Shell and I remind ourselves of what we should be doing as its usually been a couple of months since our last dive.  We had been told that the water was very cold here, but at 20 degrees we didn’t find it that bad.  Floating at the surface waiting for everyone to get in, Ja pointed in the direction we were going to go, only to be corrected by a dive master with another group, slightly concerning as Ja had only been working at this centre for three weeks.

Once we were all in the water it was time do descend.  The water was fairly clear and we started to swim across the coral reefs, unfortunately it wasn’t the greatest of reefs with quite a bit of bleaching.  As we went along we saw the usual reef fish and the tail end of a Moray Eel but nothing that we hadn’t seen before.

About 20 minutes into the dive we encounterd a moderate current that Shell and I hadn’t really experienced before but we soon learned to drift with it instead of trying to swim against it.  The dive continued for another 25 minutes until JA signalled for us to do the 3 minute stop before ascending. Amazingly I still had a decent level of air in my tank, although as usual Shell had far more than me (I think she has gills!!).

At the surface, Ja signalled to the boat to collect us and we were soon hauling ourselves back on board.  When we were all aboard we then headed back to the shallow bay and got off the boat and went to shore.

Before our second dive we were going  to have a rest and a few snacks and were led up to a picnic area up on the rocks.  Here we were given a sandwich and some fresh fruit to eat whilst we relaxed for an hour or so.  As we sat there admiring the view we noticed a couple of Iguana’s scaling the nearby rocky cliffs, unfortunately the Go-Pro had run out of juice so no photo’s.

 

 

After the break, we then went back to the boat and headed for our second dive spot, which was along the coastline and was going to be a wall dive.  We switched over our air tanks and had our second dive briefing before getting back in the water.

As we descended, we noticed that the visibility had deteriorated markedly, with only about 5 metres visibility Shell and I (only us 2, dive master and Irish guy on this dive again) ensured we stuck pretty close to Ja.  Luckily we had already had experienced worse visibility than this on one of our dive in Malaysia so we were not fazed by it.

The visibility not being great meant that we did not see too much on this particular dive.  The only thing of note which was quite eerie was when we came up to a submerged small statue of an angel with an inscription on, possibly where someone drowned? (the guides did not know).

Once again after 45 minutes we were coming to the surface again with plenty of oxygen left in our tanks, which makes a change for me.  Although the dives were not fantastic it was good practice after not having done it for over 3 months and it helps to build up our experience.  We are hoping to do a couple more in Mexico (where it’s supposed to be amazing)  before we return home, so this was a good refresher.

Getting back into the boat we collected the other groups before heading back into Taganga bay and dry land.  We headed up to the dive centre and washed all our kit off and then sat down with Ja to fill in our dive logs, that was our 13 & 14 dive which we are quite proud of seeing as we only learnt to dive on this trip.

Leaving the dive centre we headed back to the beach to our favorite bar/restaurant where we spent the remainder of the afternoon having ‘welcome back to diving beers’ until the sun went down.

 

 

In the evening we went back to the hostel to get showered and changed before heading out to a restaurant to get some dinner.  We chose quite well for a change and had quite a large meal that was Chicken/Beef Skewers (Shell) and a large Pork Chop thing (Glenn).

We had a couple more beers before heading back to the hostel for an early night as we had another early start the next day.