Since we were looking to head to Parque Tayrona for quiet and uncrowded beaches, we spent the first two nights (and the last one) in a little fishing village near Santa Marta called Taganga, which was a step in the right direction. It’s more of a tourist village than a fishing village these days, probably, but still not TOO touristy, and still definitely small, so there’s some charm because of that. Also, people come here to head out on diving and snorkling expeditions.
The town’s located at the end of a bay with mountains on both sides, and has a small beach divided into a swimming section and a boating section. The shops and houses are built up a little hill overlooking the beach. It’s gorgeous and charming from the mountain road as you approach the town, and the ocean view from most parts of the town is pretty 
impressive. The beach itself, however, is full of litter (which is a problem lots of places in Colombia), so not so pleasant, though this doesn’t stop people from hanging out there and swimming. This is one of those towns that is so small that everyone knows everyone, and if you need to find a place, you don’t look for the address, you just ask around.
We stayed at Casa de Felipe, which is owned by a French guy and his Colombian wife–never met the French guy, but his wife was there and very helpful. It’s up the hill a little from the main intersection in town. Semana Santa is the high, high season for places like Taganga. I never heard anybody at Casa de Felipe except for staff speaking Spanish–lots of English English, Australian English, American English, German, French, Hebrew.
One thing surprising to me is that there are so many Israeli tourists in Taganga that lots of restaurants have Hebrew versions of their menus, and signs around town will be in Spanish, English, and Hebrew. I had never noticed a big Israeli tourist population in other towns in Colombia, but maybe that’s because I was just being oblivious.
We never found many great restaurants in Taganga, with the exception of Baguettes de Maria, which I will write a separate entry about. Twice we ate at La Ballena Azul (The Blue Whale), which has both of the two prime corners on the intersection of the beach and the main road leading to the beach. It was a little less than mediocre, though, and not expensive but definitely not cheap either. Probably we should have explored a little more.
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