I arrived in Taganga, on the Caribbean Coast of Colombia, at the very end of a 10-month trip to South America. I don't think we really intended to stay for five weeks, but as soon as we put our backpacks down we seemed to be unable to move!!

Taganga is a quiet fishing village just a few minutes' bus ride from the small city of Santa Marta. The beach in the centre of the village is a bit ropey, but if you scramble round the mountain for a few minutes you'll find a number of lovely places to swim, snorkle and sunbathe. Taganga is also a fantastic place to learn to scubadive - apparently one of the cheapest places in the world to do so, and scuba schools are everywhere.

We managed to rent a small 'house' (it was a little hut with a big concrete extension that soaked up all the water when the tropical rains came) and had a great time here when we weren't boiling to death thanks to the insane heat and poor air con.

We shared our house with all kinds of crawling things, and our garden with crazy local dogs and a family of donkeys. The locals are friendly but are also slightly crazy (possibly due to Colombia's most famous export...yes, that's right...coffee. )

There's a good choice of inexpensive restaurants serving freshly-caught fish, and while nighttlife is low key it does exist - there's even an all night bar to tempt the gringoes with cash to burn.