Santa Marta is the capital of the department of Magdelena on Colombia's Caribbean Coast. It was the first city founded on the continent by Rodrigo de Bastidas in the year 1525, serving as a base of exploration and conquest of the Caribbean and the interior of the country. The colonial area of the city contains contructions of great historical value: The Cathedral, with its stone masonry construction, the interior alters of Carrara marble, and the bell tower that ends in a peculiar onion-like shape. The fortress ruins of El Morro, the Museum of Anthropology, the Cloister of San Agustín, old dominican convent, the Temple of San Francisco and the Casa de La Aduana.
Located 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the city center is La Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino, a mediterranean style home constructed 400 years ago, which survived through all the years because it is here where the Liberator Simon Bolivar died on the 17th of December, 1830.
At 14 kilometers (9 miles) from the city center we find "El Rodadero," a tourist center by Gaira Bay, with a sizeable hotel zone (Tamacá, Cañaveral, Arhuaco) and tourist services. A few minutes by boat from here is Blanca Beach and the Aquarium, with an interesting collection of marine animals in its Sea Museum. Pozos Colorados is another tourist sector near the city center, along the road that connects Barranquilla and Cartagena, where the best hotels are located: Irotama, Zuana, Decameron, Costa Azul, Santamar and the Convention Center.
But without a doubt, the jewel of Magdelena has to be the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the highest mountain range, where the peaks of Colón and Bolivar rise magnificently to 5800 meters above sea level (19,028 ft). The peaks are covered year-round by snow, like a final farewell to the Andes Mountain range, which runs the length of the South American continent from Argentina and Chile all the way here to the Caribbean Coast of Colombia. The Sierra Nevada has all the thermal waters, more than 30 rivers, and many lakes originating from the mountain glaciers. Living here are 30,000 indigenous people of the Kogi, Arhuaco, and Wiwa tribes who consider this their sacred land.
The spurs of the Sierra Nevada dive towards the seal at Parque Tayrona, like a giant open hand forming numerous coves. In all there are 15,000 hectares (58 square miles) of cliffs, white-sand beaches, mangroves swamps, anf tropical forest. We find in the area of a small town, named "Chairama" in the local indian dialect, a settlement of the indigenous Kogi people along the banks of the Buritaca River. Also here is important arqueological center where the Tayrona Culture developed to its prime. There are many relics left behind by the Tayrona here at archeolgical complex known as Ciudad Perdida or "Lost City." It is one of the largest precolombian settlements on the continent and is considered a sacred place to the local indigenous people.
Ciudad Perdida. Situated on the high Buritaca River and discovered in 1976, the "Lost City" is a spactacular monument of ancient terraces. In the social organization of the people, it had become their political and economical center, inhabited by some 3000 people, where 40% of the terraced area was designated as public space. It is also know as Teyuna or Buritaca 200. It is evident in the construction of the terraces that these people excelled in engineering. Buried in the jungle for more than 400 years, the terraces were conceived as a system for controlling rain waters. Santa Marta is connected to Barranquilla (1 hour) and Cartagena (3 hours) by a magnificent road with reliable service and regular transportation. Flights to the interior of the country operate regularly and the airport has the capacity to receive charter flights and large aircraft.