Musings, photos and other random stuff from the life of a meandering whale nerd
Sunday, December 7, 2014
December 7, 2014: Puppies, Parakeets and Papilios...explorations around Costeño Beach, Colombia
These last couple of days were spent traveling from the beautiful city of Cartagena (See earlier posts from December 2nd, 4th and 5th) to Santa Marta, and the beaches beyond. Yesterday, after a great day of diving, chilling in Cartagena and partying with some pretty wild Latin American zoologists the night before (see post from December 5) we woke up early (ish!) to take the bus from Cartagena to Santa Marta. We were headed to Costeño Beach Surf Camp about an hour northeast from Santa Marta along the Colombian Caribbean coast .
We took the Marsol bus to Santa Marta, which was not too bad despite some pretty negative Trip Advisor reviews. Our driver was pretty grumpy when we weren't ready to leave our hotel immediately (even though he showed up 45 minutes late!) but once we got on the road everything went smoothly. The trip took about four hours and then, when we arrived in Santa Marta, it took some time to figure out the next leg of our journey. The Marsol bus did not drop us at the bus terminal but instead somewhere in town away from the main bus station.
From our unknown location we had to get ourselves to the bus station to catch a public transit bus to Costeño Beach; this proved to be further away and more of a hassle than we expected so we finally resorted to taking a taxi to the surf camp. We were keen to hit the beach and chill out and were definitely not in the mood for taking a taxi to the bus station, hauling all our crap on a public bus and then figuring out how to get to the beach with all our baggage. Normally people use moto taxis to get to the camp but we had way to much luggage. One of the joys of traveling after work...hauling all the gear from the job!
We were loaded down with a lot equipment for our work offshore La Guajira Province, near the border with Venezuela, as Marine Mammal Observer (Hugo) and Passive Acoustic Monitors (me) during a marine seismic survey. We had lots of work related equipment, i.e. binoculars, cameras and large lenses, laptops, steel toed shoes, coveralls etc. The taxi cost us much more than the bus would have (80$!) but, in the end, we could justify it because we had just finished working (and spending almost nothing while offshore!) and the taxi allowed us to get to the surf camp quickly and with little hassle...except dragging my wheelie suitcase through the sand upon arrival! Oh my, I was definitely not a backpacker on this trip! Soon enough we were chilling in hammocks on the beach. Such a relief after a long travel day!
Today our main goal was to relax. We had a relaxing breakfast cooked at the camp (for about 2.60$ CAD), chilled on the beach, watched the surf and surfers and then, after a delicious lunch (about 6$ CAD!) we decided to check out the wildlife around the camp. We walked along the sandy road leading into the camp; it was a hot, muggy afternoon stroll but we had a great time taking photos and enjoying the scenery.
Not long after we left the camp we spotted a couple of incredibly cute (but somewhat mangey!) puppies. They immediately befriended us by jumping up and down on our bare legs scratching them with their little claws and nipping with their tiny little teeth! Of course, they were too cute for us to be bothered by this and they stayed with us for the entire walk. Besides enjoying the antics of the little pups, we spotted some orange chinned parakeets (Brotogeris jugularis), Red-tailed squirrels (Sciurus granatensis) and beautiful Papilios, or butterflies (in latin) during our afternoon exploration!
The puppies briefly distracted by another human (homo sapiens) walking along the road
Uh oh! Time to catch up to us again!
I'm a levitating pup :)
Almost caught up!
I believe the following photos are of the Gulf Fritillary or Passion (Agraulis vanillae) butterfly. They were all over this plant which was perfect for photographing them:
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