Visit the colorful and vibrant country of Colombia
We visited 2 stops in Colombia as part of a 12 night cruise to the ABC islands and South America. We visited Cartagena and Santa Marta. We had a wonderful time in both cities and are excited to share our experience!
If you want to see the whole experience, check out our vlog:
Cartagena
During this cruise ship stop, we had only 8 hours! (and started at 6am! yikes). So, really, we had even less ha.
We decided not to book any tour, but instead just to spend time walking around the city. Our plan was to taxi between different places throughout the day.
When you get off the ship, you actually walk through a really beautiful wildlife area (zoo-ish) with tons of super noisy parrots and some other animals. We enjoyed that unexpected start to our day.
We were one of the few people who didn’t jump on a busy and expensive tour bus. We saw a few people standing outside of the zoo offering tours. We honestly had no plans to do this, but at the last minute decided to go for it – giving us a ride throughout the city and a few extra stops we didn’t think we’d get to make. I don’t remember exactly how much we ended up spending, maybe $100 or something – certainly more than if we took a taxi, but it seemed worth it for an, essentially, private tour – and our guide was super nice.
He first drove us up to a church way up a huge hill that had sweeping views of the city. There were people selling souvenirs, but he warned us ahead of time to wait and get cheaper things later.
Next we asked to go to Castllo de San Felipe. He dropped us here while we paid the small fee and walked around. It is an old fort with really amazing views.
Finally he drove us into the old town and walked around a few places to take us shopping, go on the old city walls, overlook the ocean and more. He pointed out a few nice squares we could walk in, some local stores that he liked and more. We appreciated him helping guide us around while also giving us space to do what we wanted.
The city of Cartagena is so colorful and friendly. We thoroughly enjoyed this city and would recommend to anyone!
Santa Marta/Minca
For our day in Santa Marta, we wanted to do something a little bit different. We read about the town of Minca just outside of Santa Marta. It had, years ago, been controlled by the cartel and was dangerous. Since then, it’s gone through a transformation and is a haven for backpackers with tons of hostels. It was so peaceful and beautiful up in the mountains. Highlight of the trip.
We really dislike cruise ship excursions because they are expensive, usually involve big busses and lots of crowds. Instead, we booked a tour through Expedia through a company called Tovar Extreme Adventures. (It was called Minca Full Day Tour – coffee, cocoa lunch and river). Wow – this is an absolute must do! This was my husband and my favorite day on our 12 day cruise. We were able to get picked up right by the cruise port. We were running super late (port authority was way late letting the passengers off) – and I was able to get Christa’s whatsapp # ahead of time – recommend getting that and downloading whatsapp if you’re coming on a cruise – so we were able to stay in touch. They waited for us and were very accommodating.
We got in a few vans to head up to Minca. There were 3-4 cruise families with us which was nice and helped our anxiety about making it back in time before the cruise left – at least we’d be with others!
The drive up was pretty and took about 40 minutes or so. We stopped in downtown Minca then jumped in Jeeps to head up a crazy bumpy road to some waterfalls.
We hiked up a very steep hill to reach the waterfalls. You had time to change and swim in the water for about 45 minutes. Beautiful. Bring bug spray though – I’m not joking when I say I probably got bit 100 times – they were not itchy but the bites swelled up crazy. I’ve never really quite seen anything like it.
After the waterfall we came back to a local restaurant. The food was great and was nice to be in a local restaurant. My only comment would be – the food was hot and so were we. Soup and hot food would may have better be replaced by more of the wonderful smoothie they had. I also wish we had a bit of time to shop in the charming downtown area, but that may have happened if we were not so late getting off the cruise ship.
Next up – we walked through the town to this amazing hostel with an incredible view. We sat in this beautiful open air area to learn about cacao beans and coffee. We learned so much, got to try samples of chocolate and coffee and had some great laughs as people didn’t like the bitter cacao beans 🙂 The views are beautiful as well.
They arranged transportation back to our port. Christina was amazing – so professional, informative etc. The other folks from the tour were wonderful as well. It felt so authentic and we learned so much. Felt like we were really immersed in the Colombian culture. When we got back to our cruise, so many people complained that they had a bad day on the cruise excursions and we (almost) felt bad bragging about the incredible, memorable day we had! 🙂
