A much shorter bus journey brought us to Santa Marta.

We stayed in our favourite hostel so far – Viajero Santa Marta.

There isn’t much to see in Santa Marta itself, but it’s a great location for travelling to other ‘must see’ places, such as ‘Tayrona National Park’.

After spending one day exploring Santa Marta, we packed an overnight bag and took a taxi to Tayrona National Park.

The taxi dropped us to the park entrance, and from there we walked a couple of kilometres to our campsite ‘Don Pedro’.

When we arrived we were given our beds for the night, which were hammocks!

Unfortunately, this was the height of what I saw in Tayrona Park and I became sick almost immediately after arriving! After five months of travelling without any issues, my luck was bound to run out at some point! Tori had a great time though, and I definitely got my money’s worth for my hammock!

The next day, we returned to Santa Marta where I stayed a night to recover and Tori left for Minca, our next destination, which was just 30 minutes away. We both treated ourselves to a taxi which was heavenly! Any day you don’t have to lug your bags to a bus is a good day!

We LOVED Minca!

Despite having made a reservation for one night, we stayed five, and were very sorry to be leaving at all!

Tori did a couple of hikes which she loved, while I took it easy to fully recover. Minca is a very relaxed town, and we were staying about two kilometres outside the town in a place called ‘Casa Pozo Azul’. We absolutely loved staying here! It definitely wasn’t for its modern facilities, or overall cleanliness! It just had a charm and was such a relaxing place to be.

While in Minca we took a coffee farm tour – a must when in Colombia!

We also swam in one of Minca’s many waterfalls.

The only way to get around Minca was on a moto taxi, which was great because Minca is a very hilly place!

Our favourite spotin Minca was ‘Casa Loma’- especially at sunset!

We spent most nights here eating delicious vegetarian food and soaking up the views!

That pretty much sums up our trip to Minca, and to Colombia, as all that was left for us to do was to take a taxi back to Santa Marta for a flight back to Bogotá (where we started) for one last night!

Colombia exceeded my expectations big time! It was so colourful and vibrant and a really interesting place to be! You could easily spend another month here, but that’s it for us!

Next stop, Chile.