limegreenlimey
Active member
A very limited review of a short trip in Colombia.
Simply to say that I recently spent just over a week in Colombia. My visit was limited to a relatively small area of a relatively large country. I can't tell you all that much ; I hope that what I can tell you is useful or interesting or both.
I visited Cartagena, Santa Marta, and the Sierra Nevada. For those of you unfamiliar with Colombia, Cartagena is an old city, founded by the Spanish on the north, Caribbean coast. It's old city is walled, fortified a few centuries ago, is full of attractive period architecture, and is a cruise destination, among other things. It was the home of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's very beautiful. It's very safe as it's heavily policed to keep it safe. It's almost entirely devoted to tourism, local, regional and international. It's expensive by developing world standards. Same sort of prices as Spain or Greece in hotels and restaurants, some hotels slightly cheaper.
Santa Marta is another old city but far less attractive, further east on the same coast. It is next to a vast national park which includes Tayrona (beaches and jungle) and the Sierra Nevada (mountains and jungle) the highest parts of which are snow capped, even at the equator, which it nearly is. Santa Marta gave its name to "Santa Marta Gold", famous weed of the 60s and 70s. The hills were for some time the territory of weed and coca growing and some of these parts were outside government control. It's a big area. Weed is still grown there, certainly. But it has become touristed and it's now famous for "The Lost City Trek": Colombia's answer to Macchu Picchu (in terms of the trek, not the site so much) and eco tourism in general. On the coast, there are vaguely hippy party villages like Palomino. Not that you need to be a tourist to party in Colombia. They love a party, the Colombians. They love rum and dancing. And drugs not so much.
Now, for the purpose of my trip to the hills was, straightforwardly, to get stoned in the jungle, which I love to do. And, I am pleased to report, it's a great place for it. There's a village in the hills called Minca, which I suppose is like Vashisht or Kasol in India, or Pokhara Lakeside in Nepal. It is banana honey pancake territory. There are lots of hostels. There are lots of backpackers. Many of the visitors are not stoners. Most are trekkers and nature people. And some cyclists. But there are stoners and dready types there. You see posters of Ayahuasca sessions. You can buy shrooms over the counter. And if you look not very hard, there are shops openly selling weed.
My experience of Colombia weed is limited. I had some in Tobago a few years ago and very good it was too. It wasn't old school weed. In Colombia they mostly grow locally acclimated European/American sativas and that stuff was, basically, Amsterdam good (not best) quality bud. I had also be warned by people who had visited recently to expect to be disappointed.
In Minca I bought from two shops, almost next to each other, almost opposite the police station. Why are these places always so near the cop shop? Easy to collect the kickbacks? Protection? Who knows? I bought a "big" bag of buds form one and 2g from the other. Both were similar in quality, the 2g slightly better and certainly easier to smoke, as it was just a little drier. The quality was... Standard Commercial International Bud. SCIB! (We should trademark it!). It's (bearing in mind: tourist prices in tourist place, so this would be expensive) between $0.50 and $1 a gram. You can probably buy a kilo for $100 if you know the right people. I did not.
Minca is basically in a cloud forest. It's high in the hills. It is relatively cool (20 degrees C in the daytime when I was there). It is surrounded by steep hills and secondary rainforest. It is very humid indeed. Outside the small (a few streets) core of the village, there are roads, tracks and paths leading off into the hills and valleys, and that's where the nicer places to stay are. I staying in few places out towards "The Hidden Waterfall" (a bit of white water in some very attractive rainforest about 10 minutes walk steeply uphill from the village). You can pay anything from USA$10 to ??$hundreds a night, to stay in everything from a hammock to an eco lodge. You can get a good meal from USA$4 to USA$40. There are shops. Self catering is just about possible, based on the basic provisions shops in the village. You could drive to a supermarket in Santa Marta in half and hour. It's... very nice.
I didn't go there but the mini Goa stoner hippy village in the area is called Palomino, just east of the Tayrona national park. Apparently it's a raving on the beach, get stoned all day kind of place, surf a bit. Most people loved it. Mostly I didn't go because mostly the sea there is too dangerous to swim in and I don't like the beach if I can't swim, and I didn't have enough time.
In Cartagena you do get offered weed and coke a fair bit by street dealers. I didn't buy. I hate street deals, hate cocaine, and there are too many risks of getting caught up with the police. There are a couple of dispensaries too but they told me that they didn't sell THC weed (not to me anyway!). Could you score there? Sure. I expect it would be very easy. And then get a boat to the islands, which are all white sand and bamboo frame restaurants and the like. It would be nice, I am sure. Also, it must be said, there are a lot of prostitutes in Cartagena. Sex tourism is very visible there. That's not my thing so I didn't indulge. I did find it slightly tricky to smoke in Cartagena. It's not a place where you smell dope and my experience suggests that drug taking in general and dope smoking in particular in Colombia is definitely frowned upon by the majority. Suffice to say that annoying the police in Colombia is unlikely to be a good idea. So, I smoked pipes in my bathroom and that kept me happy for a few days.
Is Colombia a good stoner destination? From what I can tell, it's not a bad one. Possession is decriminalised (small fine). You can access weed. The weed is ok and cheap. The places to smoke outside the city are spectacular. It's not wildly expensive when you're there. It's not hard to meet nice people. The Colombians are a cheerful bunch. There are lots of other travellers. You can get stoned in a rainforest and listen to all the birds and bugs and frogs sing their little hearts out. I did. It was good.
Simply to say that I recently spent just over a week in Colombia. My visit was limited to a relatively small area of a relatively large country. I can't tell you all that much ; I hope that what I can tell you is useful or interesting or both.
I visited Cartagena, Santa Marta, and the Sierra Nevada. For those of you unfamiliar with Colombia, Cartagena is an old city, founded by the Spanish on the north, Caribbean coast. It's old city is walled, fortified a few centuries ago, is full of attractive period architecture, and is a cruise destination, among other things. It was the home of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's very beautiful. It's very safe as it's heavily policed to keep it safe. It's almost entirely devoted to tourism, local, regional and international. It's expensive by developing world standards. Same sort of prices as Spain or Greece in hotels and restaurants, some hotels slightly cheaper.
Santa Marta is another old city but far less attractive, further east on the same coast. It is next to a vast national park which includes Tayrona (beaches and jungle) and the Sierra Nevada (mountains and jungle) the highest parts of which are snow capped, even at the equator, which it nearly is. Santa Marta gave its name to "Santa Marta Gold", famous weed of the 60s and 70s. The hills were for some time the territory of weed and coca growing and some of these parts were outside government control. It's a big area. Weed is still grown there, certainly. But it has become touristed and it's now famous for "The Lost City Trek": Colombia's answer to Macchu Picchu (in terms of the trek, not the site so much) and eco tourism in general. On the coast, there are vaguely hippy party villages like Palomino. Not that you need to be a tourist to party in Colombia. They love a party, the Colombians. They love rum and dancing. And drugs not so much.
Now, for the purpose of my trip to the hills was, straightforwardly, to get stoned in the jungle, which I love to do. And, I am pleased to report, it's a great place for it. There's a village in the hills called Minca, which I suppose is like Vashisht or Kasol in India, or Pokhara Lakeside in Nepal. It is banana honey pancake territory. There are lots of hostels. There are lots of backpackers. Many of the visitors are not stoners. Most are trekkers and nature people. And some cyclists. But there are stoners and dready types there. You see posters of Ayahuasca sessions. You can buy shrooms over the counter. And if you look not very hard, there are shops openly selling weed.
My experience of Colombia weed is limited. I had some in Tobago a few years ago and very good it was too. It wasn't old school weed. In Colombia they mostly grow locally acclimated European/American sativas and that stuff was, basically, Amsterdam good (not best) quality bud. I had also be warned by people who had visited recently to expect to be disappointed.
In Minca I bought from two shops, almost next to each other, almost opposite the police station. Why are these places always so near the cop shop? Easy to collect the kickbacks? Protection? Who knows? I bought a "big" bag of buds form one and 2g from the other. Both were similar in quality, the 2g slightly better and certainly easier to smoke, as it was just a little drier. The quality was... Standard Commercial International Bud. SCIB! (We should trademark it!). It's (bearing in mind: tourist prices in tourist place, so this would be expensive) between $0.50 and $1 a gram. You can probably buy a kilo for $100 if you know the right people. I did not.
Minca is basically in a cloud forest. It's high in the hills. It is relatively cool (20 degrees C in the daytime when I was there). It is surrounded by steep hills and secondary rainforest. It is very humid indeed. Outside the small (a few streets) core of the village, there are roads, tracks and paths leading off into the hills and valleys, and that's where the nicer places to stay are. I staying in few places out towards "The Hidden Waterfall" (a bit of white water in some very attractive rainforest about 10 minutes walk steeply uphill from the village). You can pay anything from USA$10 to ??$hundreds a night, to stay in everything from a hammock to an eco lodge. You can get a good meal from USA$4 to USA$40. There are shops. Self catering is just about possible, based on the basic provisions shops in the village. You could drive to a supermarket in Santa Marta in half and hour. It's... very nice.
I didn't go there but the mini Goa stoner hippy village in the area is called Palomino, just east of the Tayrona national park. Apparently it's a raving on the beach, get stoned all day kind of place, surf a bit. Most people loved it. Mostly I didn't go because mostly the sea there is too dangerous to swim in and I don't like the beach if I can't swim, and I didn't have enough time.
In Cartagena you do get offered weed and coke a fair bit by street dealers. I didn't buy. I hate street deals, hate cocaine, and there are too many risks of getting caught up with the police. There are a couple of dispensaries too but they told me that they didn't sell THC weed (not to me anyway!). Could you score there? Sure. I expect it would be very easy. And then get a boat to the islands, which are all white sand and bamboo frame restaurants and the like. It would be nice, I am sure. Also, it must be said, there are a lot of prostitutes in Cartagena. Sex tourism is very visible there. That's not my thing so I didn't indulge. I did find it slightly tricky to smoke in Cartagena. It's not a place where you smell dope and my experience suggests that drug taking in general and dope smoking in particular in Colombia is definitely frowned upon by the majority. Suffice to say that annoying the police in Colombia is unlikely to be a good idea. So, I smoked pipes in my bathroom and that kept me happy for a few days.
Is Colombia a good stoner destination? From what I can tell, it's not a bad one. Possession is decriminalised (small fine). You can access weed. The weed is ok and cheap. The places to smoke outside the city are spectacular. It's not wildly expensive when you're there. It's not hard to meet nice people. The Colombians are a cheerful bunch. There are lots of other travellers. You can get stoned in a rainforest and listen to all the birds and bugs and frogs sing their little hearts out. I did. It was good.
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