From Taganga to Santa Marta it was less than 6 kms. We only had to get over the ridge, maybe 100 mtrs. ascent. The hill seemed much easier from this side than when we came to Taganga. Fresh legs after a relaxed day of rest in this quiet beach village?
So it was not yet 10.00 in the morning when we reported at Hospedaje Casa Familar and got a room. The rest of the day we spent with visits to 3 museums. We got by taxi to Quinta de San Pedro Aleåjandrino. This is a national monument, the place where Simon Bolivar died. It was a well kept beautiful place in a nice garden, the Colombians are highly devoted to this founder of indepent Colombia. Back in town we visited the Museo del Oro Tayrone. In the new library building is a large vault with many gold (and other metal) objects crafted by the Tayrone people. There were good English explanatory texts, it was veray worth while the visit. Then we paid a visit to the Museo del Arte, where there were only 2 exhibition rooms open, but a nice collection in a nice colonial building. The centre is old and a number of original buildings have survived the times, the boulevard is nice and full of terraces and jugo-, tinto (black coffee in small plastic cups poured from thermosses) and food vendors.

The ride to from santa Marta to Baranquilla appeared to be 116 kms long. The next morning we got up at 05.00 hrs, had our morning coffee from a tinto-vendor on the beach side and rode out of town at six. We had a very nice empanada with raja (fish) breakfast one hour later and then again some hours later, it happened.
There is a large bay between Santa Marta and Baranquilla. This bay is closed from the sea by a narrow tongue of land, on which the road is built. It’s about 50 kms long, there are no trees, no shade. At a certain moment we stopped for a short rest and moved in the shadow of a truck that was parked there. To get in the shade we had to get in the, what we thought, grassy side of the road. Alas, it was a mass of just mowed short thorny bushes. When we realised this and moved our bikes onto the tarmac again, we had three (3!) punctures. 3 flat tyres at the same time. Unique! There we were, in the sun on this long hot road. Now we carry two spare tubes, they were quickly changed. Fortunately I discovered a little pond not far from the road, so I was able to detect the leak in the one tyre I had to repair on the spot. Just when I had glued the patch on the leak, a very old truck stopped and 2 boys and an elderly man got out. To make it short, we were summoned to load evrything on the truck and get out of the sun to a shady place. It was a 40 year old truck and it made a hell of a noise, but some 40 kms further we were dropped of at a “peaje”, a toll station, where there were food and drink stalls and a lot of shade. Here we had some gaseosos and I fixed the last tyre. After that we still had a good 40 kms to go before we found, after a lot of asking around, paroquia San Pablo in the barrio La Paz, one of the poorer quarters of Baranquilla.

Here we were received in a more than welcoming way. There is a lot to be told about what this small community, just a handful of Dutch religious people of the order of Camillians, have acheived here in a good 30 years: a parish,  a first line health center, a center for care for multiply handicapped children, a school, a retirement home for elderly people, a library and a co-operation where the people of the barrio can arrange there payments for energy, banking matters etc. Some 200 local people, including teachers, therapists, doctors etc. work there. We are full of admiration.

Pics: start here.

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