Shannon in Wanderland: A Third Listicle of Colombia (Santa Marta + Palomino + Cartagena + Playa Blanca)

The final days of the trip!

1. The overnight bus from Medellin to Santa Marta was QUITE long - seventeen hours to be exact. And we didn't stop to leg stretch! Not once! There were two drivers and they switched at tolls, but that is it. And that was crazy. When I finally arrived in the bus station, the woman working the bathroom gave me a wink and handed me two wads of toilet paper instead of the usual one, so I must have looked a fright.

2. One day when looking for a cheap local restaurant, we wandered into someone's house/restaurant called Lucy's. I asked for a menu and was told that she was the menu. She then listed all of our options. We sat, ordered, and asked if they served beer. She said they didn't have any but would happily run out to get some for us. This happened several times throughout Colombia.

3. Admittedly, Santa Marta was my least favorite place on the trip. It was hot and dirty and the men were leering and awful. And there's not much to see. Though I did see an exchange between a hooker and an old man.

4. BUT Santa Marta isn't all bad because it's a jumping off point to a lot that is nearby, such as Palomino!

5. Palomino was a lovely and quiet lil place. There were no roads to our hostel on the beach, so we hopped on the back of motorcycle taxis and cruised down to the hostel. We then basically hid out there for several days and I only changed out of my swimsuit to sleep. It was a black sand beach, which I learned is magnetic. A week later, the sand can still be found in the clasp of my purse.

6. A standard warning sign is to beware of falling coconuts and not sit directly under palm trees.

7. I book swapped at my hostel in Santa Marta and got a lil attitude because the one that I was swapping had no cover (which is how I received it). But it was a New York Times Bestseller and still had it's title page, so I negotiated another successful swap.

8. I shuttled to Cartagena, which was my last big stop of the trip. Upon arrival, I repacked my bag to bring a small bag to Playa Blanca (not really even a town - just a beautiful beach) the next day, where I stayed for a night. I also began the purge of gross clothing and shoes to leave behind. RIP hiking shoes. You were useful but are moldy and disgusting and will not be missed.

9. Overall, the hostels that I stayed at were probably much nicer than what people expect. When entering and evaluating hostels in Playa Blanca, however, the big selling points that the hostels boasted were light and water. It didn't even occur to me to ask for these things, they seem so basic! The light was only on for several hours in the evening; then we were illuminated by the moon and stars. The water was salt water that was bucketed out of other huge buckets. There were nice, porcelain sinks next to the buckets, though they were not connected to any pipes. To me, this was hilarious. Why not just use another bucket? Because sinks look fancier. The rooms in lil stilted huts with beds were good though. Sand everywhere!

10. Even though Playa Blanca is LITERALLY only a strip of beach with huts on it, I still managed to get lost attempting to find the bus back to Cartagena (which is also how I arrived). Luckily, at this point I was no stranger to planning for lost delays, so I still had plenty of time to make it to the bus, and successfully navigated my way back to the city.

11. Upon returning to Cartagena, I was solo again and planning on just exploring the city and having a quiet night in because I was tired and didn't want to start the friend making process over again. But in true traveler fashion, within fifteen minutes of leaving the hostel to explore, I ran into someone that I had met several weeks before. So we found some food and explored and hung out for my final night