11/05/2019 – Beach day, Taganga, Colombia

We got up and had breakfast in the hostel; scrambled eggs, arepas, fried plaintain and coffee. We facetimed Pete, it is his birthday today, so we spoke to he and Trudie (and Josh’s nan who showed us photos she has printed off from our diary, which brought a tear to her eye!) We spoke to Matty afterwards who is excited to be doing his biggest trip of his life to New York in a month! Then we did a little trip around the village with Josh’s camera to get some snaps. Unfortunately, for the photos sake, it was overcast again, but still over 33°C, and very humid. Josh has to put the camera outside to acclimatise the lens before he can take photos!

Various photos of Taganga.

Plus my hair has a constant halo of frizz and curls around it and there seems to be nothing I can do about it! We went to a beachfront café for an iced latte which was on the menu but when we ordered it I actually got asked how to make it! It tasted like a grown up milk shake! Then we dropped the camera back to the casa and went to the dive centre to book ourselves in for a scuba dive tomorrow (OMG!) We then strolled down to the same beachfront café (I think its called Mar y Terre) and had some lunch, a set menu for £3 each! Chicken broth soup, cordon bleu, coconut rice (sooo tasty), salad and fresh orange juice! Then we walked over the mountain pass again to Playa Grande and took it in turns to swim (not safe to leave any valuables on the side we didn’t reckon). On the way over the mountain pass we saw a huge iguana on the path, it was being fed some banana by some women sat next to a hut so not sure whether it was a pet or wild. It is a Saturday so the beach was absolutely packed with Cololmbians having their weekend. It is true the beache and the water in the bay is pretty filfthy. For such a beautiful country it is such a shame they definitely haven’t cottoned on to the recycling/less plastic etc vibe. We chilled on some basic plastic garden chair things that were lined up on the beach for a while and had to say no gracias to a load of vendors targeting the foreigners with their bracelets/sunglasses/tablecloths/fruit/coffee (this is an every 2 minute occurance, they are very persistant here! It has got to the point of embarrassment where we are like, still no, thanks though, we spoke to you a minute ago! Followed by an awkward laugh from all involved!) Then we walked back over the mountain pass and to our usual beachfront café for another refreshing iced latte. We went back to our room and showered and relaxed for an hour before heading out for dinner. We ended up getting a barbecued chicken sandwich on the beachfront, which was lovely! Then headed home in the knowledge of having an earlier start tomorrow, both really nervous about the scuba dive.

BBQ dinner, contemplating suber diving in the morning.