Travel day (to Santa Marta)

After a late night hanging out with other backpackers at Roland's rustic, yet stunning beach bar, we got up at 5:45am to get a taxi to the ferry port. Ferry left around 7am and got us back to San Andres island at 11am. Had 4 hours to kill before the flight back to mainland Colombia so grabbed some lounging chairs at nearby beach bar and enjoyed some cold ones. Pretty sweet way to kill a few hours before flying. The beach bar was literally a 10 minute walk from the airport.

Unfortunately we had to fly all the way back to Bogota and switch planes to Santa Marta which meant we'd be flying past our destination on the way to Bogota. Booo.

With two hours layover, it should have been loads of time, but our flight was a bit delayed and then eventually we figured out we had to switch terminals.. but how? There was no signage and everyone we asked gave us a different answer. Literally 8 different answers. Once we found the bus and switched terminals we didn't expect to have issues finding the gate but once again nothing was marked for us to go upstairs for that particular gate so we ran all over the place looking for clues like we were on the amazing race. Seriously, it was pretty frantic.

On the second flight, Kristin was sitting next to an incredibly friendly and chatty Colombian guy .. while I caught up on sleep :). On arrival, we had nothing booked and our plan was to get downtown and ask the taxi driver for a safe area to stay, near or in the old town.

Appropriately for our day, our driver spoke zero English.. but he was incredibly kind hearted and spent a ton of time driving us around to find something and understand what we wanted. I think we walked into the hostel around 10pm? Looong day. 1 boat, 3 taxis, 1 bus and 2 planes later, we were finally there. Btw super cool hostel with cabanas on 4 levels and a pool and bar on top level. Ventured out for a bit of food and some beer to unwind after a somewhat stressful series of transportation switches. Probably doesn't sound like much fun but I swear it's days like this that sometimes puts the bigger smile on your face later on. All part of the adventure. -SPRead more