“Practically all of Santa Marta is at the beach today,” says my new friend Sol after returning from an afternoon walk along the city’s boardwalk, set right along the Caribbean coast and lined with old-fashioned street lamps and food vendors.
It is a Sunday after all, my second Sunday in Santa Marta – a city I’m embarrassed to admit I never quite knew of before arriving in Colombia. My shame grew even greater when I learned it’s actually the oldest city in Colombia and the second oldest in all of South America, established when Spanish conquistador Rodrigo de Bastidas arrived here in 1525.
However the Santa Marta I’ve come to know doesn’t feel too especially historic, at least not after my initial week in Cartagena. What it feels like is local, unassuming, lived in, and for this reason I have grown to love it – the print shop where I scanned my first set of sketches last Monday; the lunches of yellow-corn arepas and fried eggs that Sol and I have prepared in our hostel; and the local produce market where we bought a quarter of a guanábana (or soursop fruit) yesterday and proceeded to blend it with milk into the creamiest natural juice I’ve ever had the honor of tasting.
Most of my two weekends here have been spent working on assignments and sketching commissions in between longer, more off-the-grid adventures, so I haven’t had a chance to venture out of the hostel very often to draw. But for now, here on this balmy Sunday afternoon evening in Santa Marta, I thought I would share the lone on-location sketch I’ve done in this coastal port city.
As I write this, I’m sitting in the same spot from which I sketched last weekend, on a gray-white boulder along the promontory that extends from the shore into the sea. The air smells of salt and fish, spindly-legged crabs skitter sideways across nearby stones, and behind me, a bevy of local children splash and shout in the surf. Their parents look on, sipping plastic cups of sweet agua limón juice. Vendors sell skewers of grilled beef and chorizo, as well as cans of Aguila beer – one of which I purchased earlier and now sip as a nearly invisible sun sets behind pale blue clouds.
And what’s going through my mind, as I look up briefly from these notes and study the edges of the dark verdant hills rising up behind the far side of Santa Marta, is gratitude for this place – for a city I only just learned about, but which has come to feel like home.
When Sol and I returned to Santa Marta yesterday, one of my first ports of call was the small tienda down the street from our hostel, which I have not yet failed to visit at least once a day here. As soon as I walked up, the shop’s owner, Manuel, extended his hand and said, “You were away?”
“Yes,” I say, “in La Guajira.”
He smiles, hands me a bottle of water, and says bienvenida – welcome.
And the beautiful thing is that I felt it.
Beautiful…it looks so peaceful & I can practically smell the sea & hear the gulls.
Your paintings are just surreal! You are beautifully talented! Kudos! Keep doing the great work!
I love the way you travel. It seems like you have plenty of adventures, but you always give yourself time to absorb it all.
Your writing conveys such soulful wistfulness. Your children and grandchildren have a priceless gift to be able, in the future, to see and feel your journeys and experiences through your eyes and words. I hope you will turn a collection of your writings and sketches into a book.
I love the simplicity of that sketch – it embodies the beauty you describe of Santa Marta. I hope you’re doing well and enjoying South America!
Lovely colors, Candace. Love that one. And I really enjoyed the story. It’s nice hearing sweet, simple things like that every once in awhile–well, actually, when one can get them! 😉
Thank you for introducing me to such a lovely city! I can’t wait to learn more about it and see more of your lovely work 🙂
thank you so much for inspiring me to pain again! I may be rubbish but I do enjoy it and after starting in Akumal sketching the boats that you sketched in Playa del Carmen it made me say ‘i can do that’ so here I am sketching away till midnight! Hopefully i have a fun banner for my blog when i finish. Keep doing what you are doing cause you are killing it! Libby xo (nacholibby.com)
Aw, reading that made me feel like a little bit of your magically beautiful evening just made it’s way around the world to me. Thank you!
xox
giedre
ps. Just found your blog via Paper Planes – looking forward to reading more!
I love the colours in this Candace 🙂
Delightful and inspiring post Candace – I just love your sketch of ‘Santa Marta’ and I must confess, I hadn’t actually heard of it until now – beautiful!!
That sounds like a really cool place to visit.
I’m sad I didn’t make it up to Santa Marta while I was in Colombia, it sounds so relaxed! Do you use fineliner with your paintings? It’s a lovely effect.
Sounds like a perfect place to laze around and do nothing. Beautifully described and sketched, Candace. Always love reading your blog!
So beautiful. The painting and your words are lovely, your love for Santa Marta shines through this piece.
Wonderfully written, wonderfully captured.
I’ve lived in Canada most of my life. I arrived from Bogotà, Colombia when I was 5. I have always wondered what guanábana (or soursop fruit) was in English. It was my father’s favourite juice. Thanks for the memories.
You have a way of describing a location so that I feel like I am there with you. You travel to so many interesting places.