22nd March 2015 – Barichara to Santa Marta – 2015-03-30 01:42

We have a long day ahead of us today and we leave at 5:45 am with a packed breakfast from the hotel. We have 657 kilometers to drive and its estimated to take us between 12 – 14 hours. We leave Barichara in the dark backtracking to San Gill before heading north to Santa Marta. We drive on the most fantastic road up, down and around mountains with spectacular views for about 3 hours. The only problem with this road is the number of trucks on it and getting past them takes a while. We keep our stops to a minimum today as we have a long drive. All cars are running well. We drive through lots of small villages that are an assault on our senses. The stalls are stacked with fruits or meat that is hanging ready to eat, the cafes have very loud music blaring out of them, there are motor bikes and tuc tucs everywhere with the smell of fires cooking the meat. Everyone waves as we drive through, it’s Sunday and there are lots of people out & about.We pass through about 8 tolls today each one costing about US$4, so traveling around Colombia isn’t cheap. At each of the toll stations there are people selling drinks, snacks and even cooked meat.One of the towns we drive through sells fuel offered at a discount by independent sellers rather than the oil companies like Esso. The fuel is sitting in plastic containers on the side of the road. Fortunately we didn’t need to buy from them as the quality of their fuel may not be too good for our cars.We pass crops of pineapple, bananas, mangoes and numerous other fruits as we drive down from the mountains into a canyon towards the coast and Santa Marta. It’s 41 degrees in the Car and it’s 51 degrees in the foot well, so we’re drinking lots of water today, oh to have air conditioning!We catch our first glimpse of the Caribbean Sea as we come into Santa Marta.ÿ There are a lot of cargo ships anchored off shore and a coal terminal with a long pier out into the water. Our hotel is right on the beach and we go for a stroll along the shore of the Caribbean with John & Ros before having dinner in an outside restaurant at the hotel. It’s windy