CasaGrande Surf

To spend a couple of hours tubing down a river with a beer in hand, take a bus for 40 minutes up the coast from CasaGrande Surf to Palomino and bag a rubber ring and a motorbike ride to the starting-off point from one of the shops in the village. Post-float, pizza restaurants and cafés are in the main street leading down to the beach. To see Camarones’ pink flamingos, journey another hour east to the Los Flamencos Nature Sanctuary. Heading westward instead? Santa Marta, the biggest city in the region, is also an hour away and home to an old cathedral as well as a lively bar scene. If you're up for escaping the heat, Minca’s cooler climate is an hour and 10-minute drive up into the mountains – a top spot for flitting from finca to finca while finding out about how the region's coffee and chocolate is farmed.