My New Home!

Four hours on a bus brings you to Santa Marta, another coastal town in North Colombia. I arrived here on Sunday, to my new home for the next three months! It is actually daunting to arrive somewhere new knowing that you will be there a while, as you look at everything slightly differently than when you are just stopping through. As it was a Sunday, and Carnival as well, everything was shut. I took a left out of my hostel and wandered up the streets, everything was quiet except for sudden bursts of life every few streets. People were sat on plastic chairs by their front doors, blaring salsa, cumbia, reggaton and drinking beer, with some couples dancing in the streets. Then you would turn a corner, and all would be quiet again, except for maybe a stray dog lying panting in the shade.


I have found, in my limited experience, that in smaller towns people love to stare at the foreigner walking around, but here the stares aren't so bad! There are of course the usual comments that seem to follow girls around South America, but they seem to be such a standard these days that I would probably wonder what was wrong if all the men suddenly were polite and quiet! I was greeted with the usual couple of scary stories on arrival - someone got mugged, people have been held at knifepoint - but actually there is a nice atmosphere here, and I feel very comfortable walking around alone.


The sea front here is lined with small bars and restaurants, which are pretty expensive. Sitting right on the beach are vendors selling all kinds of things - cigarettes, drinks, food, ice-cream, USB sticks... There is also a massive digital clock which tells you the temperature, which constantly hovers around 35 degrees Celsius. It is HOT. The evenings bring a small break, as the breeze picks up and the sun lowers. But the temperature never seems to drop below 28 degrees, and the fan in my room is going constantly through the night in an attempt to cool things down! The heat also brings the bugs... I have killed several cockroaches so far (one by accident with my bare foot), and am sure there are more to come. Yuck.


The best discovery so far has been the street stalls that gather in a cluster in the centre of town, cooking all kinds of food, everything from pizza to arepa. For less than a pound you can feast on skewers of marinated chicken, or empanadas, or a full plate of food (fish, rice, salad). My new favourite is arepa con queso, a maize/corn bread cooked with cheese inside which is delicious! They also have fruit stalls everywhere, and you can get jugs of freshly blended juice to wash down all the delicious food. Some fruit I have never even seen before, let alone tried, so it is all a learning experience! 


So, I think the next three months could pass quite comfortably here, as long as I learn to get used to this heat!