Tag Archives: budget

Was it worth it Wednesday?

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Where have we been?

Santa Marta, Cartagena & Medellin (Colombia)

Moving countries next week!

Where have we stayed?

1 night @ hostel Miramar 60,000 pesos, £15 small clean room, relaxed atmosphere, free breakfast, good wifi

3 nights @ unnamed hostel: 50,000 pesos, £12.50  Private room, Shared Bathroom, ok wifi

1 night @ Playa Blanca: 50,000 pesos, £12.50 Room in a hut, Bed literally on the sand, Share Toilets, No Shower, No wifi

1 Overnight bus: Free Sleep (if you can call it sleep)

1 Night @ Hotel Neuva Samatarini: 38,000 pesos, £9.50 Clean hotel, Private bathroom, Our first warm water shower in Colombia.

 

Transport:

Santa Marta-Cartagena

Cartagena – Playa Blanca

Playa Blanca – Cartagena

Cartagena – Medellin:

Total transport: 

What have we done?

Chilled at the beach: Free

Cartagena Free Walking tour: 20,000 £5 donation

Nights out @ Havana, Bahai club:

 

Total cost of Experiences: 

What have we spent?

Still on a £50 per day budget  £350 per week.

Total Accommodation: 298,000 pesos, £74.50

Total Food: £73.50

Total spent: 

 

What we loved?
What we learned?

  • Never ever EVER go on an overnight bus straight from the beach in beach clothes, forgetting to take jumpers and throws out of your backpacks, especially when its an express 12 hours no stopping to get into the bunker.  its blasting out air-con!
  • That we can salsa… But need lots of practice! or maybe a lesson or 2!
  • One conversation with someone on a bench in the middle of a city can lead to an amazing friendship!
  • It can be very difficult to find a vegetarian restaurant in a new city!

How’s the Spanish going?

Chris is now able to have some jokes in Spanish! As we were drinking our coconuts on the street a man  was trying to tell her they were too small. So when Chris went to pay the woman she asked for 7000 pesos, we usually only pay around 2000 or 3000 pesos each. He laughed and pointed at the huge one and said “No Senorita, Muy Cairo, 7000 par uno grande”

We made a friend in Cartagena who had little English, and with our little Spanish we were able to have 2 full amazing nights out and lots of wonderful conversations. There were miss-communications but we always figured out what the meaning was eventually.

When Nic was trying to order a melon fruit juice the waiter brought over a Milo milkshake!

Was it worth it Wednesday?

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Where have we been?

Taganga, Minca & Santa Marta (Colombia)

 

Where have we stayed?

3 nights @ local’s house with room for rent 40,000 pesos, £8 per night double room, clean and we were allowed to use the kitchen to cook fresh seafood just landed a 5 min stroll from the house.

2 nights@ Casa Loma  90,000 pesos, £22.50 per night for double room in the tree house, private balcony, stunning views, chilled vibes, eco friendly, no wifi, no fan/ air con, great veggie food.

1 night @ Sierra Nevada 55,000 pesos, £13.75 family run, very clean, no fan, ok wifi.

1 night @ hostel Miramar 60,000 pesos, £15 small clean room, relaxed atmosphere, free breakfast, good wifi.

 

What have we spent?

Still on a £50 per day budget  £350 per week.

Total Accommodation: 391,000 pesos, £97.75

Total Food: £73.50

Rough price of main meal is around £2- £5 estimated 3 meals @ £3.50

Transport:

Taganga-Santa Marta bus: 2800 pesos, £0.70

National park bus/boat trip:  25,000 pesos, 2800 pesos, 45,000 pesos boat each: 145,600 pesos, £36.40

Taxi to Minca: 22,000 pesos, £5.50

Taxi from Minca: 16,000, £4

Total transport: £46.60

What have we done?

Diving: 2 dives each 130,000 pesos , £32 each

Tayrona National Park: 35,000 pesos, £8.75 each

Hiking : free

Cascade waterfalls: 3000 pesos, £0.75 each

Coffee Plantation: 10,000 pesos, £2.50 each

Total cost of Experiences: £88

 

Total spent: £305.85

Loss/ Profit?  We have probably broke even this week as that £44.15 extra  we add to miscellaneous drinks, cheeky coffee & cake, new flip flops

What we loved?

It had been slightly over a year since we had been Scuba diving. So our highlight of this week was getting back into the under water world. Hear about our fun dives in our Taganga post.
What we learned?

  • Don’t sit on a petrol can of the boat
  • Don’t let a cat in your room whilst sleeping catastrophical!!
  • We can achieve much more than we think we can. We just need to act on situations.
  • That we are able to eat only vegetarian meals, the only non-veg we will eat is fresh seafood.

 

How’s the Spanish going?
We are now having simple conversations in Spanish to locals who are able to comprehend what we are saying. A few words may be mixed up but we are definitely on track in listening for key words and understanding the basic context of the conversation. By pushing ourselves to learn more words we are also able to interact in the conversation. We know we can always do better and strive to be fluent in Spanish one day soon!

We were able to translate for a Russian guy and Filipino woman in the restaurant as the waitress was trying to tell them there was no fresh juice except maracuya (passion fruit) and they had no idea what she was saying so we manage to tell them. They were so thankful and the woman then thought we actually spoke Spanish and now we feel more confident and very happy with our accomplishments as we basically had no Spanish when we arrived.

 

 

Was it worth it Wednesday?

South America, Uncategorized, , , , ,

We have decided to plan a weekly post on an update of our weekly budget, accommodation, experiences and lessons learned. During our first few weeks we have been pretty laid back about our blog and have so much still to write about, it’s hard for us to be focused on writing when there are so many fun distractions on the road. So we have officially gave ourselves one deadline. Every Wednesday we will give you the lowdown on our week. You can let us know if our week was worth it?

Where have we been?

Barranquilla & Taganga (Colombia)

What have we spent?

Our rough budget is £50 per day and we expected to go over this week due to Carnaval but we are slightly under which is great after a few crazy party days!

Accommodation: £101

Food: £60, Rough price of main meal is around £1.50- £3

Transport:

Bus (Barranquilla – Taganga) £4each,

Sharing taxi’s during carnival/ bus station: Roughly £15

Experiences:

Alcohol: around £40 (2 beers at carnival were £1)

Carnival outfits: £8

Nic’s Dress & Hair piece £4, Chris’s Poncho £4 ( hat & Rum were gifts from friends, muchas gracias amigos)

Carnaval tickets: £11

It was £20 for grandstand tickets outside the gate so we walked a few blocks to another gate and paid £2.50 for a local experience and the second day we got grandstand for £3. Happy savings!!

Total: £243

Daily spend roughly: £34.71 per day for both of us to eat, sleep, party at carnival and escape to the beach!

We now have £15.29 per day (£107.03) to add to any extra travel or experiences most likely towards scuba diving!
Where did we stay?

5 nights in San Marcos hotel (Barranquilla) £17 per night pretty cheap for carnival nights, met amazing people and hotel staff were awesome!

2 nights in a local house with room for rent £8 per night double room, clean and great wifi.

What we loved?

I think its obvious that our highlight this week is carnival!!

Post in progress to hear about the madness!

What did we learn?

We have learnt how extremely friendly Colombian people are. Along our travels in Colombia we have not felt intimidated. Every local person has been so nice helping us out and worried about us, reminding us to look after our things even with little English/Spanish or via hand gestures. Colombia is amazing it provides the perfect atmosphere to party with the locals being so welcoming and also one of the best places to chill in the world as the lifestyle is so laid back it really is a unique country and should be on everyone’s bucket list (we love Colombia so much we haven’t even scored it off ours)