Origins
Santa Marta was not always the tourist corridor we know today. For much of the 20th century, the city grew southward, following the coastline and the road that connected it with Ciénaga and Barranquilla. Los Almendros, La Paz and San Martín were born from that impulse: that of a city that needed to house thousands of families arriving from the interior of Magdalena, from La Guajira and from neighboring municipalities, looking for work at the port, on the troncal or in commerce.
Los Almendros is the most emblematic case. It began as an informal settlement on land that at the time was farmland and peripheral lots, and over the decades it consolidated as a working-class neighborhood with its own commercial life: bakeries that give off the aroma of freshly baked bread, workshops, corner stores, fried food stalls that fill the air with flavor and a parish that became a meeting point. La Paz and San Martín followed a similar logic, though with nuances: La Paz took shape around the road that connects the center with the south, while San Martín grew as a pass-through neighborhood, with one- and two-story houses, mechanic shops and a corner life that never appears on postcards.
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Spanish Bootcamp Online
If you come from outside and want to understand Santa Marta beyond the Centro Histórico and El Rodadero, these three neighborhoods are the gateway. In this Malokal guide you will find updated prices for the area; use the interactive cards for each place on malokal.com to check the safe map by neighborhood, live holiday hours and book directly via WhatsApp. Reference ranges for 2026 in the area: a set lunch between $12,000 and $18,000 COP, a fried snack with natural juice between $6,000 and $10,000 COP, and a cold beer between $3,500 and $6,000 COP, depending on the business.
Timeline and historical milestones
There is no single founding date for these neighborhoods, and it is worth saying clearly: the history of Los Almendros, La Paz and San Martín is the history of a city that expanded in layers, without a master plan. What can be reconstructed are the milestones that marked their consolidation.
Los Almendros
This neighborhood was born as a settlement on peripheral land and consolidated over time thanks to self-management: civic committees, community work days and constant pressure for public services. The arrival of drinking water, electricity and the paving of its main roads were gradual achievements that transformed daily life. Today, Los Almendros has a commercial life that does not depend on tourism: people live from hustling, from the workshop, from the corner store, from motorcycle taxis and from selling food.
La Paz
La Paz took shape as a pass-through neighborhood on the road that connects the center with the south of the city. Its growth was tied to the Troncal del Caribe, the highway that crosses the city from north to south and became its backbone. Mechanic shops, tire shops and informal stops have been part of the landscape for decades, creating an identity of its own that reflects the daily life of its inhabitants.
San Martín
San Martín grew as a working-class residential neighborhood, with one- and two-story houses, quiet streets and a corner life that revolves around the store and the bakery. Its consolidation was slower and quieter, without major milestones, but with a clear identity: that of the neighborhood where everyone knows each other and shares stories.
La Troncal del Caribe as the backbone
If there is one fact that explains these three neighborhoods, it is the Troncal del Caribe. This highway not only connects Santa Marta with the rest of the country: it also works as the axis that organizes the daily life of thousands of people. Los Almendros, La Paz and San Martín depend on it to get around, work and stock up. When the troncal gets congested, the whole city feels it. It is the artery that tourism rarely looks at, but that sustains the essence of the city.
Key figures and events
The history of these neighborhoods is not in books: it is in the memory of their inhabitants. The civic leaders who secured water, electricity and pavement; the matriarchs who set up the first bakeries and fried food stalls; the workshops that became a reference for the whole city. There is no single figure that sums up these neighborhoods, and that is part of their richness: they are collective stories, of people who built their house brick by brick and their neighborhood day by day.
What is a verifiable fact is the transformation of the landscape: from lots and pastures to paved streets, from bahareque houses to three- and four-story buildings, from the cart to the motorcycle taxi. That transformation is what tells the story of Santa Marta better than any monument.
Current state
Today, Los Almendros, La Paz and San Martín are consolidated neighborhoods, with services, commerce and a life of their own that does not depend on tourism. But they also face tensions: congestion on the Troncal del Caribe, insecurity in some sectors, the lack of quality public spaces and real estate pressure that is beginning to look toward the south of the city.
What is lost when tourism only looks at the Centro and El Rodadero is the possibility of understanding Santa Marta in its entirety. The Centro Histórico is beautiful, but it is only one part. El Rodadero is the beach, but it is not the city. Los Almendros, La Paz and San Martín are the Santa Marta that works, that rises early, that gets around by motorcycle and that eats on the corner. If you want to know the real city, you have to go through there.
If you grew up in Los Almendros, La Paz or San Martín, share your story: we are building an oral archive of the neighborhoods of Santa Marta. Write to us and tell us what your neighborhood was like before, what has been lost and what has been gained. That memory is the one that does not appear in the guides and it is the one that truly matters.