The minute we arrived in Taganga, we fell in love with the place. We got rooms for $5USD/night at this awesome hostel that Megan and Lyza recommended and this charming little town is simply the perfect destination for a couple days of beach-side relaxation.

Taganga’s beach is a bit rocky, but we quickly befriended some beach bar owners who agreed to let us use their chairs everyday if we bought their beer and ate their amazing steak lunches. During the day we’d sit in our chairs and read and play beats on the ol’ i-peezy while drinking freezing cold beers.

The sun in the north of Colombia is intense. It’s so hot that you have go in the water every 10 minutes to cool off and if you haven’t finished your beer in less than 5 minutes, you have a warm one on your hands. Within a day or two Huntington was darker than the locals. We spent a lot of time at the beach trying to make inroads with the smoking hot Israeli girls and constantly singing the praises of Colombia and the trip thus far.

Taganaga is also a very affordable place to get PADI certified for scuba diving---another thing we didn’t have time for, unfortunately. The good news was, that I could look out and see big cliffs exposed right over the water a couple miles out on the rocky coastline: prime cliff jumping territory.

I went up to one of the guys who runs the Scuba safaris and explained what I was looking for.  “vente cinco metros! Nooooo!” He basically thought we were crazy and he had never heard of anyone jumping off cliffs into the water, but also said his friend might be able to help. He pointed over to Ever, a jolly Colombian dude with a huge gut and guilty smile.

Ever was already trying to sell another traveler on a boat trip to a nearby beach, and we simply jumped in and split the cost of the boat taxi. The other guy was a cool cat from Holland and although he had no intention of cliff jumping with us, he wanted to come along and watch.

The first cliff we putted by in Ever’s boat was the one I had had my eye on all along. Ever insisted that it was suicide, still struggling to grasp the idea that we wanted to jump off an 80 ft cliff into the ocean.

I dove in and climbed up the side of the cliff and when I got to the top it was a lot bigger than I had expected…a solid 80+ft of air and a very tricky landing. Because of the waves it was incredibly difficult to tell how deep the water was. I decided that in the best landing area it was only 10 ft deep and that there were nearby parts that were a mere 5 ft deep. In the end it was too risky so I climbed back down and we kept hunting.

Ten minutes later we had rounded the rocky point that protects the bay in Taganga from the waves and currents of Parque Tayrona and the sea was angry to say the very least. Ever’s boat was getting worked by the waves so it was now or never.

Matt and I dove in while Ever and the Dutchman made a wide loop in the boat. We climbed up the backside of the cliff, carefully making our way through cacti and exposed cliff face. The takeoff was a bit sketchy because you sort of had to climb down the cliff to get to the launch pad. The good news was it looked really deep and if you jumped way out, away from the cliff, not much could go wrong unless you lined up a belly flop.

I hucked off it and swam like hell towards to boat so as not to get crushed on the rocks by incoming waves. I gave Huntington the thumbs up and without hesitation he launched off the same piece of rock—at least 75ft above the surface of the water—and landed without incident.

Success.

We took off towards the beach that the Dutchman wanted to check out and drank beers with him and Ever, who, extremely impressed by the cliff jumping, had decided he loved us. And so began our friendship with Ever…

This guy was freaking hilarious. He dove into stories about everything from his failed attempts with hitting on foreign girls to the history of his family and their trade there in Taganga (cocaine smuggling). At first I thought he might be full of shit, but in retrospect, I assure you Ever’s tales about his grandfather, the professional cocaine smuggler, were very real. That was all in the past now, though. Ever’s grandfather and uncle are both serving life in prison in Aruba for smuggling over 50 kilos across international waters (something they did successfully many times over before getting caught in the nineties). Instead of going into the smuggling business, Ever opted to be the local dealer and part time captain of a small fishing boat.

Ever is the self proclaimed “Rey de Papomang”, of Taganga and although he’s no Pablo Esobar, I had to constantly refuse “gifts” from him.

It’s very risky to carry any contraband in a place like Colombia because since there are security problems, any cop can search you at any time, without provocation—and in Taganga—they do. I would recommend steering clear of Colombia’s most famous export and don’t smoke doobies on the beach, either. We saw/heard about multiple people getting cuffed for marijuana possession and the local cops will take you straight into town with your ATM card to empty out your bank account in order to avoid going to jail. No fun…

Drugs aside, Ever turned out to be a really great guy and dropped all kinds of knowledge regarding where to go out, what the best restaurants were--plus having beers with him was constant entertainment every time. Yet another cool, genuine Colombian, wanting nothing more than to send us home raving about our trip and changing the perception of the misunderstood people of this country.