I feel I should try and explain my limited understanding of the Santa Marta rental industry. After having been essentially coddled into an apartment, I am by no means an expert, but there are some interesting differences between apartment hunting in Santa Marta and apartment hunting elsewhere.

Firstly, most Santa Marta apartments come "fully furnished." This includes dishware and pots and pans. The reason for this is because most people rent out apartments in Santa Marta during the "high season" to tourists. Santa Marta is a huge tourist town and a good beachfront apartment can earn from 1-4 million pesos a week. This is a lot of money in Santa Marta and it's one reason that if you take an apartment and promise to be out during December/January, your rent is often a lot lower than if you need to be in the apartment at that time.

The "high season" is also the reason a lot of people would prefer their apartments go empty during the year and then make bucco buck during the high season.

My new apartment is really nice. Not as nice as some friends of ours who got a penthouse for less, but you have to look at everything as an opportunity.

Uploading pictures of it is aparently taking up too much bandwidth, so I will hold off on that until I have internet. Hopefully soon!