Though I thoroughly enjoyed Santa Marta’s beaches and historical sights, let’s not pretend that one of my favorite things about my trip to Santa Marta wasn’t the eating part. Food is way up there on my list of reasons to travel, and Santa Marta has lots of great things both to eat and drink.

Tayrona Park in Santa Marta derives its name from the indigenous people, the Taironas, who have lived in its mountains for centuries. I don’t need to tell you what the Spanish conquest did to their population, I’m sure you know how that same old awful story goes, but many of their descendants continue to live in the region.

You might think that after my time in Tayrona it’d be a bit of a downer to go back to the city, but frankly, though I loved the park I wasn’t at all disappointed because Santa Marta is a pretty charming place to “have” to come back to.

Some destinations loom large in the collective imagination. Leading up to my trip to El Parque de Tayrona, everyone who I mentioned it to had the same reaction: It’s gorgeous, it’s amazing, can we come too? I admit to going into it rather blindly, excited by everybody else’s excitement, but other than that pretty clueless as to what exactly made Tayrona so special.

La Ciudad Perdida is a five-day hike in the Colombian jungle. A few summers ago, three friends were coming to visit me and I convinced them that this trek was something we needed to do together. They went for it and so, in addition to visiting Cartagena and Taganga, I made arrangements for us to trek to the "The Lost City" in the Sierra Nevadas of Santa Marta.

If you visit the Caribbean area of Colombia, an absolutely mandatory side trip from Santa Marta is the Tayrona National park (Parque Nacional Tayrona). This is a protected coastal tropical forest, most of which you can only access by foot, donkey, or boat, thus guaranteeing an adventure away from civilization.