2.0 The locations of Magical Disinformation: Part 2 - Santa Marta

In this post we explore Santa Marta and the nearby fishing village turned backpacker party mecca of Taganga.

Santa Marta features in MAGICAL DISINFORMATION with protagonist, Oliver Jardine, meeting one of his key allies in the search to fill his falsified intelligence reports. He briefly visits Santa Marta’s old, slightly run down colonial area before moving on to track down the more nefarious operators who lurk in Taganga.

You can read the first few chapters of MAGICAL DISINFORMATION via the Amazon “Look Inside” function HERE.

Santa Marta

Santa Marta is a city on the Caribbean coast of Colombia with the title as the oldest colonial town in South America. It’s a city that is often overlooked but has some interesting historical aspects and a nice colonial centre of which some parts have been recently revamped.

On the historical side as one of the first established European settlements in South America, the Spaniard Rodrigo de Bastidas hoisted the Spanish flag in 1525, thinking it a good base to explore the nearby Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and its supposed mountain of gold. It also acted as an important staging post for inland exploration as Jimenez de Quesada set off through the Magdalena Valley (and along Colombia’s famous Magdalena river) where he stumbled across the Chorro de Quevedo in Bogota. 

So for a while it was an important city in the new colony of Nueva Granada, but was soon overshadowed by its down-the-coast neighbour Cartagena which became the port gateway to Colombia. Historically speaking, it’s well known as the place where the Libertador Simon Bolivar died on December 17, 1830, before his body was relocated to his birth city, Caracas.

I’ve always enjoyed my time in Santa Marta. The laneways and streets branching out from Parque de los Novios are host to lively bars where you can swill dark rum and swig cold Aguila beer or try a cazuela de mariscos (seafood stew) in one of the seafood restaurants.   

Taganga

Over the hill from Santa Marta lies Taganga. A place that is very much a “you’ll love it or you’ll hate it” kind of place. A place that was once a small, out-of-the-way fishing village which attracted hippy-types in the 1970s and that converted itself into a thriving backpacker town before morphing into a case-study in over-development and over-tourism in a small town with limited resources and infrastructure. It also led to a rise in crime and exploitation which I write about and fictionalise (much is based on real events) in MAGICAL DISINFORMATION. 

The small village of Taganga.

The hippy-types that were originally attracted to Taganga came because of the “boom marimbera”, where a flourishing marijuana growing industry sprouted in the hills of the nearby Sierra Nevada. In marijuana aficionado circles (so I’m told) the famous “Santa Marta Gold” is still widely known. 

As a side note, there’s an excellent Colombian movie which will introduce you to this era as well as the scenery of the area. Much of the dialogue is spoken in the local indigenous language Wayuu. Check out Birds of Passage (2018) by director Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego, which is currently available on some streaming services. 

As I mentioned previously, much of the events from this part of my novel are based on real events so while reading the novel I’d encourage you to google articles, news and stories about Taganga to learn more about what has occurred there.  The news website Colombia Reports gives a good overview of Taganga (here) which will give you an idea of what has plagued the small town.  

Cabo San Juan del Guia in Parque Tayrona. A national park an hour (or so) from Santa Marta.

Now let’s look at some common misinformation about Colombia in general.

Colombia has been portrayed in many films and books over the years. And still to this day it has a very strong, stereotypical depiction as being a place flooded in cocaine. Therefore, I present to you:

Misinformation about Colombia #2 - Colombia is a den of cocaine snorters and it flows in the streets like snow on a Canadian prairie.

(Thanks to... many, many stereotypical media pieces, movies, books and TV series that focus on Colombia)

The difference between “misinformation” and “disinformation”

“Misinformation is misleading information created or shared without the intent to manipulate people. An example would be sharing a rumor that a celebrity died, before finding out it’s false.” 

“Disinformation, by contrast, refers to deliberate attempts to confuse or manipulate people with dishonest information.”

(Source - https://theconversation.com/misinformation-disinformation-and-hoaxes-whats-the-difference-158491)

The Truth

Yes, Colombia has a horrid history with cocaine and, in fact, is today producing more cocaine than ever before (in 2021). In some areas of the countryside (and some urban areas), armed criminal groups known as BACRIMS, left-wing guerrillas (the ELN and dissident FARC groups), and the reminiscence of the paramilitaries (many of which have morphed into or joined the BACRIMS) still operate and vie for control of the industry. 

However, to ordinary Colombians cocaine is not part of their daily life. And there’s nothing that angers Colombians more than references to cocaine or connection to drug lords such as Pablo Escobar. Recently in the news, there was uproar in the UK about a new bar with the drug baron’s name which garnered media attention around the world. It’s still very much a sore point for many and you’re very unlikely to come across it while in Colombia. You’re more likely to see it being used in one of the many export destinations of the drug around the world, i.e. the USA, Europe, and Australia.

So next time you meet a Colombian, you might not want to mention it... 

Next month we’ll head to the mountains of the Sierra Nevada and deserts of La Guajira.

If you are interested in reading MAGICAL DISINFORMATION click here to pick up a copy via your preferred bookstore.