One Man’s Walk through life

Santa Marta

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Santa Marta seems to agree with me. It is a little city on the Carribean coast of Colombia. Beautiful beaches, reasonably safe, beautiful, friendly people, not too many tourists. Very laid back.

I’ve been diving, snorkeling, reading, learning how to play with poi, talking to people, walking, taking salsa lessons, and (yes, I know) even doing some coding. It’s actually suprising, how much I need to talk to people, and how much the extrovert in me comes out, after a couple days in front of a computer. I’d actually forgotten, it’s been a long time since I did the kind of coding where you aren’t constantly talking to people. I will say this, the extrovert in me is a lot better at learning spanish

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My hostel is…interesting. I think it’s starting to grow on me, but it is a total dump. I’m pretty sure all the colombian girls that stay here are prostitutes. Needless to say, the backpackers here are often smoking out or doing coke. But where other hostels I’ve stayed at forced people to be discreet, here one of the guys that works the hostel actually does drug runs for people. It’s kinda funny actually. But it’s cheap – it costs about $3 US a night. And not only is it in a good location, right near the beach, in the reasonably safe “centro”, but it’s also got character. Every night people congregate outside the hostel in chairs, drinking a little beer, and talking, telling jokes, listening, or playing with poi. And to be honest, with a single room and a door I can lock, it’s actually quite cozy. I can write on my computer, and not be too worried about other stuff. A little privacy is something I’ve started to value. At the same time, there are always people outside on the sofas (speaking spanish) so I can be out talking to people as much as I want.

As far as the rest of Santa Marta, I find it charming. The spanish here, is still pretty clear, but no where near as clear as in Bogota. This is Costeño territory. Lots of slang, and there are certain letters that people don’t pronounce. But it’s not that different from Mexico, and I can understand most people.

I think I’m going to have to go pretty soon. Part of me is glad. I’ve been here for almost 2 weeks, and that’s a long time. I need to be trekking along to Argentina. But the other part of me is going to miss Santa Marta very much. It’s just a really…comfortable place. It’s really easy to make friends and I’m going to miss the ones I’ve made.
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One thing that’s really made an impression on me is how resourceful people can be here. For example, take Luis and Marta, two of the cooler people I’ve met here.

Luis has a girlfriend in Israel, and is trying to save up money to go visit her. What does he do? Well, he’s a scuba dive instructor, but he also does tattoos, but he also teaches salsa with this Swiss woman at her house (that’s how I met him) and he pretty much does a little bit of everything else too. Whatever you need, he can find and get you a good price on.

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Marta on the other hand has a job at the port, where she basically talks to the captains and crew of boats as they come in, and gets them anything they need. How did she get this job? Well she speaks 6 language (and she’s learning 2 more) and she’s really good with people. She can talk to the captain and crew in their native tongue and she’s amazing at connecting and connecting with people. She learned all these languages by giving people spanish lessons in exchange for lessons on their language. 6 languages She is also a connector in the sense of default.TheTippingPoint, and has a database in her head of all the people she meets. It’s amazing to walk through Santa Marta with her, wherever we go, there are like 5 people she knows. Santa Marta is small, but it’s a city, not a town. And of course, she knows a bit of Capoeira, she is awesome with her poi, and she knows more jokes than my brother.