Taganga

The capital of diving!!

Johannes, Daniel and I took a taxi from Minca to Santa Marta, directly to the bus terminal because they were a little bit late, but Daniel and Johannes came to the bus on time.
After the sad farewell I had to look ahead to my next goal – DIVING and to get the “The Open Water” License. I went back to my hostel in Minca to pick up my backpack, with the colectivo to Taganga and on foot to the hostel. I stayed there only one night to look for an other nicer and cheaper hostel.

At the first hostel I met Marco from germany. He was training to become a divemaster (congratulations again on passing the exam =)). He also told me that the owner of the diving school is an Austrian.
I went to the diving school the next day. I fell immediately in love with the school and the people there. The owner of the school, Lisi, gave me a hostel recommendation. It was the best hostel during my whole trip!! It was perfect! I also decided to start the three-day course. All in all I was in this beautiful hostel over ten days =)

Unfortunately I had at the next morning a stomach flu and had to stay in my hostel. I really lay completely flat about two days. I couldn’t eat anything and had to throw up again and again. Several people had the same after staying in Minca. We still don’t know where we caught the virus. Thank god, I was able to start my diving course on the third day. I still had a queasy feeling in my stomach, but at least I didn’t have to vomit =) and the dive was mega nice!!!!! The next days:

=) diving, eating, drinking, reading, sleeping and repeating =)

I also had a lot to learn over the next three days. There are also several theoretical tests to get the license. It was all new for me because I’ve never dived before and I have to say, diving is also a physical effort. After dinner I always fell into my bed in my nice “open dormitory”.
During the course I met more and more friends and at the end I was even accepted into the diving family. Is there anything more beautiful? =) You can see it at the photos, very, very, very many selfies =)

I also passed the Open Water License. I decided to stay in Taganga few days longer and I wanted to do the next diving license, the “Advance PADI License”. for this certification you have to do five special dives.
I chose the following five:
– Current Dive; – Wrack dive; – Deep dive (31.6meters =) ); Navigation Dive; – Night Dive.

The special dives were beautiful and very educational. I had the best diving teacher ever!! Thank you Andrés for your exact and funny explanations and also “THANKS” to the whole Ocean Lovers Team!! It was a honor for me to visit you and to go with you under the water! It was a really great, funny and educational time! Hopefully we will see us soon again! STAY HEALTHY

Another nice surprise, Justinus from Germany, came for a visit for two days. It was his last two days of his travel. He already had both dive licenses. So we decided to dive together, we did three dives in one day. Then he invited me to dinner. Back in the hostel we drank a few more beers =)
Justinus, we will definitely see each other again. We are in constant contact. Thanks again for everything, the conversations, the funny holiday stories, the self-defense course on the ship on the amazon and much much more. I got a very good friendship! Thanks for that and nice greetings =)
During the “last” beer we met an guy from the Netherlands, Jon. I had also a great time with him. We had the same trip direction but unfortunately we didn’t see each other anymore, the virus destroyed our dream. But I am also quite sure that we will see each other again in Europe! Stay healthy too and hopefully see you soon.

After the tenth goodbye at the diving school i took a colectivo to Santa Marta again. After that a six-hour bus to Cartagena. Cartagena was my starting point for the sailing trip.
The reason, there is no land route from Colombia to Panama. The best, but not the cheapest and fastest option, with a sailboat to Panama.

Everything was perfect again.
The travel fatigue is forgotten. The batteries are charged. I have two diving licenses in my pocket. I met many new nice people, where some of them are really good friends for me!! I was really looking forward to the sailing trip.
Everything was perfect again