Top Tips for Travelling La Guajira

1. Travel light - the journey can be bumpy and is quite fragmented - do you really need that extra pair of trousers?

2. Take public transport - it’s part of the adventure! However if you do want to travel in a bit more comfort, we can organise tours here at El Rio

3. Avoid peak Colombian holidays such as Christmas and Easter - the normally deserted beaches become crowded

4. Whilst in Cabo, make sure to visit the Pilon de Azucar for spectacular views and the best beach in the area - the Playa de Azucar

5. Eat local dishes such as barbecued “langosta” (large langoustine) and goat - perhaps not to everyone’s taste but essential Wayuu fare

6. Stop off at Camarones on your way between El Rio to Riohacha to see hundreds of flamingoes in their natural habitat - check in advance; flamingoes are migratory so are only there during certain monthsPrepare to get dirty. Running water north of Cabo de la Vela is non existent and is heavily regulated in the town itself

7. Prepare to be dirty. Running water north of Cabo de la Vela is non existent and is heavily regulated in the town itself

8. Take your time and visit Nazareth - it may be tough to get to, but this small town that sits on the edge of the Macuira national park, home to huge sand dunes surrounded by dense forest and larger than life locusts, is often the travellers that dare visits’ favourite place in the whole province. The mysterious “rock of destiny” (Piedra del Destino) is nearby…

9. Take: warm clothes (it cools off at night), sun cream, sunglasses, trainers and cash - there are no cash machines beyond Riohacha

10. Pick up a pair of desert shoes, espadrille style shoes made of old tyres that have plenty of gaps to allow the sand in and out - saves endlessly having to empty sand out of your shoes

For more information check out our article on travelling to La Guajira! 

Where To Eat In Taganga

Sitting just over a small hill from the city of Santa Marta, Taganga is often touted as how not to do tourism in Colombia. Formerly a small fishing village, Taganga boomed as one of the first big destinations on Colombia’s Caribbean coast back in the mid ‘00s and now sprawls back into the surrounding hills. With scores of hostel choices and other, previously more inaccessible and unsafe areas such as Palomino and Buritaca opening up, supply often far outweighs demand. This coupled with a very prevalent “party” reputation has meant Taganga is often left off the itineraries of many travelling around Colombia. However a clutch of decent restaurants are changing the face of Taganga, opening it up to a newer, food-savvy market.

Pachamama

Hidden away off the main drag in a shaded courtyard, Pachamama is a reasonably priced tapas bar that many consider to be the best eatery in Taganga. The menu is seafood heavy, with simple dishes like chilli and garlic squid, ceviches and various types of carpacios, both surf and turf.   

Babaganoush

El Rio's top choice, Babaganoush is a huge bamboo building overlooking the entire bay. The impressive menu combines Italian, Arabic, French and Asian cuisines. Starters include beef carpaccio, vitello tonnato (finely sliced roast beef with tuna mayonnaise - it’s absolutely delicious), and falafel. The mains menu includes local dishes such as a pasta de mariscos (seafood pasta), a Malaysian style yellow seafood curry and probably the most popular dish, filet mignon, complete with a choice of sauces. 3 courses available for 39,000COP. 

Café Bonsai

A small cafe that sits just off the main promenade, this French owned spot is a perfect place for a light lunch. They bake all their own French style bread and make tasty sandwiches and salads, featuring both local and European recipes. Try the Costeño salad, a mix of shrimps, avocado and egg with a maracuyá (passion fruit) and chilli dressing. You can also build your own sandwiches, with ingredients including locally produced pepperoni de la Sierra Nevada. 

Taco

Big portions of Tex-Mex style food are the backbone of the menu at this beachfront spot. Hands down the best place for a snack and a decent sunset cocktail. 

Taganga is around an hour and a half by road from El Rio. It’s also a great jumping off spot for Parque Tayrona. 

Ten Top Tips for Tayrona

1. Go early to avoid queues and have the best pick of accommodation 
2. Take plenty of water and suncream
3. Bring your own food to avoid high prices and potential food poisoning
4. If you’re going to take alcohol beware, it’s likely to get confiscated at the entrance
5. Be aware of where you can and can’t swim. Plenty of people have drowned in the park as currents are strong
6. Bring snorkelling gear
7. Consider going as a day trip, using El Rio as a base 
8. Visit the lesser known but equally beautiful Playa Brava and Bahia Concha
9. Leave your big backs and travel light - we can look after your luggage at El Rio
10. Bring plenty of cash and withdraw in Santa Marta - cash machines are few and far between. Some restaurants or shops will allow you to withdraw but for a hefty fee

For more information, check out our guide here

We Need To Talk About Despacito

Before we go on, I feel the need to mention that from the very beginning, I have both detested and loathed Despacito in equal measure. I have even gone to the extents of writing “no voy a tocar Despacito” (I’m not going to play Despacito) in permanent marker on my laptop. So just to clarify, I’m not going to say anything particularly complimentary about Des-pa-cito. 

The song first came to my attention at the beginning of the year, when a particularly drunk group of girls came and asked me to play it. Apparently it was one of the girls’ favourite tracks. I explained to them we didn’t play reggaeton, that we didn’t have wifi, and that, most importantly, I didn’t have the song. This didn’t matter. I needed to play Des-pa-cito. The most important thing that was going to happen that night was that I played Des-pa-cito. I hot-spotted my laptop with my phone, I found Des-pa-cito, I downloaded Des-pa-cito, I played Des-pa-cito. I then promptly deleted Des-pa-cito and prayed that I would never hear Des-pa-cito again. This turned out to be extremely wishful thinking. From then on not a day has gone by where I haven’t heard either the original or some horrific salsa-ified remix played in shopping centres, taxis, supermarkets, electrical shops, hardware shops, the list is endless. 

I went back to the UK in June, the principal thing that I was obviously looking forward to (aside from excessive sausage roll consumption and being able to put loo roll down the loo) was not having to hear Des-pa-cito played ad infinitum in every public space I set foot it. Oh how wrong I was. Apparently the fact that the song is both extremely terrible and also in Spanish hadn’t mattered. Des-pa-cito had apparently become universally popular. Justin horrid Beiber had even got his grubby little mitts onto Des-pa-cito and had done a bit of singing on it. Short of doing a Van Gough, it transpired I was going to have to endure Des-pa-cito on home soil as well. 

Des-pa-cito was the first foreign language song to reach #1 in the United Kingdon after “Gangnam Style”. Do you remember “Gangnam Style?” Do you remember how bad “Gangnam Style” was? Des-pa-cito is officially as bad as “Gangnam Style”, except with one key difference: “Gangnam Style” was always meant to be a joke, tongue in cheek, a humorous dig a South Korean society that went viral and got way out of hand. Des-pa-cito is a legitimate pop song that is just really, inexplicably bloody popular. Be terrified. 

I have no idea who sings Des-pa-cito, I doubt many people do. Des-pa-cito has become a single omnipresent entity - a single omnipresent entity that has been streamed 4.6 billion times. That’s more than any other song ever. This is extremely worrying to people like me that both loathe and detest Des-pa-cito in equal measure because songs that popular don’t die. Songs as popular as Des-pa-cito live on at cheesy student nightclubs, at weddings, on awful Latin American radio stations forever more, eclipsing the artists that created it, eclipsing the entire genre it spawned from, eclipsing the sun and bringing eternal Des-pa-cito sounding darkness on every thing and every one, until we find ourselves driving to the supermarket in 5 years time shouting “suave suave-cito” at the top of our lungs because it’s somehow made it onto our playlist of guilty pleasures, right between “Don’t Stop Believing” and “La Macarena”. Do you remember the last time you heard these songs? Perhaps not, but you know it was recently, because these terrible tunes are what form the musical wallpaper of our existence. Tracks like Des-pa-cito dissolve into the background but remain in your head eternally. Did you hear Des-pa-cito at the garage? Did you hear Des-pa-cito whilst you were on the bus the other day, playing off some awful teenager’s phone? You have no idea, but one thing we do know is that we are going to keep hearing Des-pa-cito forever. 

There is one final horrifying point to be made about Des-pa-cito which is this: most songs this popular are in English and generally speaking don’t tend to have much longevity in Latin American countries; they disappear. We will never shake it off. This is real, this is happening. Apparently in this dystopian nightmare that is 2017, a bad reggaeton / pop crossover track is now the most popular song in the world and there’s not a thing we can do about it.