Travel Guide Ciénaga Grande

The Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta is located 30 minutes from Barranquilla, on the opposite bank of the Magdalena River from Barranquilla. It is 23 km away from Santa Marta. This swamp was created by the flooding of the Magdalena River, which inundates the savannah for eight months of the year. Its calm waters, slightly salty, are populated by an immense variety of fish. The richness of the fauna and flora is evident on the banks of the rivers and canals, but tends to diminish with the salinization of the waters that affects the mangrove. Here and there, we can see fishermen's canoes that live in the palafittic villages of Trojas de Cataca, Nueva Venecia and Buenavista, villages with colorful houses built on stilts, which can be visited through organized excursions from Santa Marta or the city of Ciénaga. Ciénaga is the most important commercial center of this region, known as the zona bananera, infamous for the "banana plantation massacre" of 1928, when the Colombian army opened fire on striking workers of the American company United Fruit. The Ciénaga Grande can be reached by road and then by boat. The imposing island of Salamanca has the status of a national park. It has a splendid flora and all the exotic tropical fauna: alligators, pink flamingos, multicolored birds, snakes, ducks, etc. It is in fact the obligatory stopover during the migrations of the American avian fauna. Migratory birds and those of the region proliferate there.