Savoring the Santa Marta Sun

The number of clouds Sha and I have seen in Colombia can be counted on two hands. I recall I mentioned in the last post that it was hot here; that still remains true. The sunshine hitting the ground here does not have any interference as it bathes the beach and anywhere that is not behind a building or mountain. The one difference between Cartagena and Santa Marta is the wind. Blowing much harder in this region of Colombia and tends to help with keeping BB from needing two bandanas during the day most of the time. 

As the title of our blog states; we wanted to move where the sun is...so we are very happy to be here and enjoying this new experience! Speaking of enjoying the sun...our first sunset in Santa Marta was at the cliffside restaurant on top of the hill by our condo complex. Watching this spectacle never gets old for me, and I hope my sharing  it doesn't either for you.

A bottle of wine was the perfect companion to have as we watched the sun go down, and then we focused on ordering some dinner. The good reviews for this place didn't let us down and we enjoyed an order of sushi, then NGG ordered a steak (it was more like a roast!) that was awesome and BB had a pasta and seafood mix where no leftovers were leftover. Dessert wasn't necessary; but a must!

As you may have been able to discern, we like to explore our surrounding areas by foot whenever we can. We have located multiple grocery stores within the "town" area over our first week and then we started to go outside the buildings and see the sights in the surrounding hills/mountains. Here are a couple of the sights we have seen on our travels...found this sexy young thing at the top of one of the hills I climbed and asked her if she wanted to share her water.

Thankfully she did, because I was parched! 

Our beach is an extremely popular place for people to be; whether it be at 6 AM or 10-11 PM. Before the sun rises over the mountains just east of our bay, there are people on the beach and in the Caribbean Sea. We haven't got up early enough to see the beach empty or with no one in the water yet. Here's a peek at the early morning scenery and fisherman activity on our beach...

As an old retired guy, I find mornings are difficult some days...but not every day!

I am a lucky guy to be able to have celebrated birthday #63 in Santa Marta Colombia with the love of my life! We had so much fun and enjoyed ourselves the first time, that we went back to our cliffside restaurant for the sunset and a sushi dinner (my choice!). I was super happy and really enjoyed getting a day older! We ended having a bonus birthday gift as the moon made a brilliant appearance that was wondrous and provided the icing on the cake.

For safety and security, we don't tend to be out at night, or at least not late at night. But we did happen to catch the sun setting while in town one night as we picked up a couple of necessities for the condo (ok, I ran out of beer, but that's important...right?).

​I can't forget to tell you about the best Italian place in Playa Rodadero that is like a piece of Italy transplanted into Santa Marta. Nuvola Rossa has an authentic (brought from) Italian fire brick pizza oven and an Italian chef that creates pasta better than homemade! Our pizza and eggplant lasagna were soooo good!

Now, here's the second part of the story...
Our bill came...and as I have said, Sha checks the reviews of the places we go to and checks their websites before we go, so we were confident they took credit cards for payment. We were startled to find out they didn't when our bill came. Not wanting to be carrying a lot of cash (local or dollars) we only had a portion of what our tab was! We were frantic as to how we were going to figure this problem out. Do I go home and get some cash to then go to the exchange "store" to get the needed pesos to pay our tab? Well, we decided to let the owner know of our problem and she was so nice and said whatever you have will be fine...we both were embarrassed. So, we assured her that we would be back tomorrow to settle up in full (which we did). I am not sure she was surprised when we came back the next day. But when we returned for a second dinner a week later we were treated like family during our dinner!

Returning from our second dinner at Nuvola Rossa, we got to see what the "city life" was like. Calle 7, is the place to be and the businesses that are here are packed with people!

We have a venture into Santa Marta (proper) planned this Friday to explore the historical part of Santa Marta and check into two "expat" friendly establishments that may (or may not) have another person who speaks english...we have come across two sets of people who have spoken english to this point in our visit (just so you know; we don't mind that a bit--still need to improve our Spanish). So, that venture may be enough for the last blog post in Colombia before we head to Ecuador.

So I will sign off for now...I hope you find some joy in following our explorations of the sun-filled areas of our planet.

P.S. My apologies if at times I find myself funnier than I really am.

Please find warm thoughts for our friends and family in the U.S. that are not wearing shorts and tank tops when they go outside at this time.

Until next time mi amigos...

​Pura Vida!