First days in Santa Marta Colombia

Excited to explore the new surroundings, we got up early and headed out in search for street food and beaches. Being only a thirty minute walk from the downtown area we decided to walk. It was hot, damn hot. Our shirts were soaked with sweat by the half-way point, so we sat in some shade to cool down. Lucky for us, along came a vendor selling street churros! Buying a bag, we practically inhaled our breakfast sugar fix and were ready to move forward. We heard from other travellers that the Santa Marta beaches were shit. When we arrived we thought they were amazing! It’s the Caribbean for heavens sake, clear blue water, creamy white sand, beautiful. I have to say, I am a sucker for the ocean, I can be having a really shitty day and if I even just dip my toes into the water it straightens me out. There’s something mystical about the ocean.

As we explored the rest of the downtown, which doesn’t take long, we stumbled upon the quintessential street food: Meat on a stick. This is one thing that always tastes amazing, meat pushed onto a skewer grilled over charcoal and usually rubbed with some sort of mystery sauce. Delicious. Right next to it grilling away was some home-made chorizo as well Obviously we had to try one of those as well. The man throws it onto the hot part of the grill to finish the cooking process, flips it onto a cutting board and cuts it into pieces. He places it on a small pile of yucca dumplings, then tops it off with tomato sauce and mayo. He throws in two toothpicks and passes it over to me, asking for 3000 pesos, equivalent to just over $1 Canadian.

The flavour itself was delicious, but the texture was a little off. The grind itself was a little rough and there were fairly large chunks of cartilage and fat mixed with the meat. Due to the large bits of fat, it didn’t melt down enough during the cooking time, leaving the meat fairly dry. Regardless, we weren’t letting it go to waste!

An amazing part of this food cart was that it was right beside a grocery store that had a great air conditioning and cheap cold beer. so before heading home, we took a quick break from the sun and walked through the store to cooled off a little. We made sure to pick up a couple cold beverages for the walk home. We were quite satisfied to be spending the next two weeks in this food town they call Santa Marta.