Taganga, Colombia: Cheap Caribbean Diving Under a Desert Mountain

Taganga is a fishing village of about one square kilometre, wedged between dry mountains and the Colombian Caribbean. Fishermen still row out at dawn in small wooden boats. And more than ten dive centers operate out of the same handful of unpaved streets.

That last part is the reason divers keep showing up. Prices here are among the lowest in the Caribbean, in the same conversation as Panama and Utila in Honduras.

Cheap is only interesting if the water delivers. Around Taganga and neighboring Tayrona Park, surveys have identified corals, sponges, sea turtles, molluscs, crustaceans and over 129 species of fish. Most of the diving is concentrated around Isla Aguja, Needle Island.

Where the village sits

Taganga is a corregimiento of Santa Marta, three kilometres north of the city, roughly ten minutes away. Behind it rises the northwestern flank of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, home to Pico Cristóbal Colón and Pico Simón Bolívar at 5,700 metres, the highest mountains in the world this close to the sea, just 42 kilometres from it.

Both Santa Marta and Taganga were founded by Rodrigo de Bastidas on July 29, 1525, which makes them two of the oldest surviving colonial settlements in Colombia. Before that, the Taganga people lived here under a cacique. The village stayed isolated until the road from Santa Marta arrived in 1953.

As late as 1988 there was one hotel. Now it is a hostel town on the South American Gringo Trail, bohemian, covered in murals, and known well beyond diving for its sunsets. People ride in from Santa Marta just to sit on the beach and watch the sky turn orange or pink.

What you will see underwater

The species list off Taganga reads like a Caribbean reef greatest hits, with a few things worth going out of your way for. Two seahorses are on it: the slender seahorse and the lined seahorse. Spotted morays tuck into the rock. Great barracuda hang in the blue.

Then the reef fish, in numbers. Queen and French and gray angelfish. Stoplight, princess, striped and redband parrotfish. Foureye, banded, spotfin, reef and longsnout butterflyfish. Bluehead and yellowhead and Creole wrasse, blue tang, sergeant major, blue chromis, French and white and yellowstripe grunt.

Also on the list, and less welcome: the red lionfish, an invasive species that is hunted here.

If you like the quieter finds, look for the sand diver on the bottom, the redspotted hawkfish perched on coral, the smooth trunkfish, the honeycomb cowfish, the Caribbean sharp-nose puffer and the longspined porcupinefish.

Sea temperature and swell through the year

The water is warm all year. September and October are the warmest and flattest months in the marine data, and February and July show the biggest average waves. On land the climate is hot and dry, days averaging 30 to 32°C and nights around 24°C, with only 661 millimetres of rain spread thinly across the year.

Water shortages are a real thing in the village because of those dry spells. From November 2015 to May 2016 it rained on a single day.

Getting there and getting around

Collectivo minibuses run frequently from Carrera 5 in Santa Marta to the center of Taganga for COP$2,000 per person, a pretty fifteen-minute ride. Taxis from the Santa Marta bus terminal start from COP$7,000; from the main beach on Carrera 1 they start at COP$10,000, rising to COP$12,000 on Sundays, holidays and at night. Agree the fare first.

For non-diving days, the surface has plenty. Playa Grande is a 25-minute walk north along the coast, or a COP$10,000 boat ride. There is a daily boat to El Cabo San Juan in Tayrona National Park, leaving around 9:30AM and back in Taganga at 4PM, with the park entrance fee paid at the beach.

Boats also run to the more remote Tayrona beaches like Concha, Chengue and Neguanje, where you may meet nobody but fishermen. Inland, Minca in the Sierra Nevada is under an hour by bus for COP$8,000. The multi-day trek to the Ciudad Perdida de Teyuna starts from here too.

Planning a few days

Taganga works as a base rather than a resort. Infrastructure and public services are a work in progress, and most streets are unpaved, but many travellers find it a nicer place than Santa Marta to explore from. The Wikivoyage guide notes a tour office in Casa Divanga giving free information in English, Spanish and French.

Give yourself enough days for a couple of trips out to Isla Aguja, one boat day into Tayrona, and at least one evening doing nothing but watching the sun go down over the bay. That is the rhythm of the place.

When you get back to the beach, log your Isla Aguja dives in Scubaspot, note the sea temperature you actually found, and add a photo if you manage to find one of the seahorses. Rate the site so the next diver deciding between Taganga and Utila has something real to go on: scubaspot.co.