Santa Marta · Things to do

Jungle running into Caribbean coves, 32 km east of Santa Marta at the main Zaino entrance. Entry is 81,000 COP for foreign non-residents in low season and 96,500 in high; the park shuts completely 1–15 February, 1–15 June and 19 October–2 November, and swimming is only permitted at marked beaches such as Cabo San Juan, Neguanje and Playa Cristal.

A village about 20 km up in the Sierra Nevada foothills, reached by shared taxi or mototaxi from Santa Marta and cooler than the coast. The Marinka waterfalls and the Pozo Azul swimming holes are within walking distance, working coffee fincas take visitors, and the birdwatching gets serious higher up towards Cerro Kennedy at 3,100 m.

A four- to five-day guided walk into the Sierra Nevada to the stone terraces of Teyuna, sold only through a small number of authorised operators — you cannot walk in independently. River crossings, bunk or hammock camps, heat and mud, and for most travellers the single biggest expense on this coast.

The hacienda on the edge of town where Simón Bolívar died in December 1830, now a museum and botanical garden open daily except 1 January. As well as the colonial house there is a Latin American art collection and a surviving stand of tropical dry forest to walk through.

The old customs house on the historic centre's main square, reopened as a museum in 2014 with 565 objects: 207 pieces of Tairona goldwork plus ceramics, stone, shell and colonial material across four rooms. It covers the Magdalena's indigenous past and its present, and takes about an hour.