Cannabis from the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta comes from the northernmost part of Colombia. It has been recognized worldwide and has acquired great fame over the years, especially during the Bonanza Marimbera in Colombia between the 70s and the mid 80’s where it became a product of large exports coming from the Sierra Nevada in Santa Marta that came from some places such as Tayrona beach and in the Perijá hills. At that time there were real roads where loaded donkeys moved hundreds if not thousands of kilos of cannabis to take the plants to various places of departure. From the Guajira, there were so many mules loaded with big sacks of cannabis that as the mules passed they would leave the intense smell along the way, as well as trucks and small planes that went to other parts of the world.
The varieties of cannabis from the mountains were introduced at the beginning of the 17th century to use hemp, which was quickly replaced by thread hemp with some fibers such as fique (Furcraea cabuya and Furcraea macrophylla) with which they made cabuyas (thread of different dimensions) and synthetic parts. There is a history of use of these genetic lines for psychoactive purposes since 1927, used by sailors on the Caribbean coast. However, it was not until 1945 that the first clandestine cultivation of psychoactive Marijuana was recorded on the Atlantic Coast in Magdalena.
In 1975, the cultivation of Marijuana for psychoactive purposes increased considerably promoted by veterans. It is said that the promoters of this were aircraft pilots and that they also encouraged settlers to plant these varieties.
It is said that some plantations were made by dropping thousands of seeds from the air in small planes.
In 1977 and 1979, a drastic and indiscriminate process of burning forests below 500 metres above sea level was carried out along the coast below 500 meters (1600 ft) in the foothills of the Sierra. Corresponding to the valleys of the Guachaca, Mendihuaca, Piedras, Córdoba, Toribio, and Río Frío rivers for the establishment and cultivation of Cannabis crops. This situation gave rise to the so-called “bonanza marimbera”. There are many writings and stories about how cannabis cultivation began on the Northern coast of Colombia and they say that it was President Kennedy’s peace brigades who began to encourage its cultivation. More settlers began to cultivate and popular festivals increased in the area with famous singers, flashy parties, expensive cars and vans, luxuries, and the bosses of the bonanza marimbera emerged.
At this time many common people made a living from large-scale cannabis cultivation. But soon the cultivation of cannabis was greatly stigmatized, and all these good people, including soldiers and politicians, were left aside as a result of the great stigma along with it. Shortly before the end of the ’80s and then in the ’90s, guerrillas and various outlaw groups arrived in the area and the deforestation of large areas increased, more than anything, for the cultivation of cannabis and cocaine but this soon began to be eradicated with glyphosate and up to these days, those lands are contaminated.
With the rise of the dollar and the Bonanza Marimbera of Santa Marta Gold, the number of armed confrontations between the government and traffickers of bonananza marimbera in Colombia also increased. It was a time of blood and casualties, the prelude to what would become the war of the cocaine cartels.
The name of this Cannabis variety is taken from the closest city where it comes from which is Santa Marta, a major town in the Magdalena Department, this was the epicenter and strategic point of the bonanza marimbera due to its proximity to the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta where they cultivated these legendary varieties, and the name “GOLD” was given to the plants by the American bosses themselves. Some say that this golden finish was the reason why the plants were subjected to stress by removing a large part of the stem, which would imply low demand for nitrates, which is false and a myth, all plants couldn’t receive this type of treatment.
The sativas from the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, both the highland and lowland variety, do not need a natural process or to be dried under the sun to show the golden colour. The golden colour and the way of producing resin is already something genetic that characterizes these varieties of cannabis from the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta.
The name gives merit to its characteristics compared to other varieties from Colombia, except for the golden variation of Punto Rojo (Punto Rojo Dorado). The Sativa from Santa Marta also known as Colombian Gold is simply an excellent variety, wonderful, unique, unmistakable, special for its pleasant intense aromas of sweet lime, sour, pungent mandarin, fruity flavours, citrus, roses, subtle incense with a very penetrating and long-lasting flavour on the palate.
It also has hints of fruit such as mountain papaya (Vasconcellea pubescens) not to be confused with the papaya (carica) but the mountain papaya or papaya “Arequipeña” that brings different aromas to papaya, even the colour is yellowish and not orange-red like the papaya that most of us are familiar with. We clarify so that the smell is not confused and you get an idea of what this legend smells like.
It also smells like poro poro or gulupa (Passiflora pinnatistipula) a fruit similar to passion fruit but this one is smaller and has a different and more intensely sweet aroma with acidic touches. Santa Marta Gold is really a jewel of Cannabis. It is a classic and legendary sativa on top of many varieties. It is differentiated by the large pointed and resinous calyxes that end in light gold and white in the last stage of flowering in some phenotypes.
This is a fine finish even though the buds are not compact, this golden finish is a beautiful feature for creating white and pale yellow varieties that are often ultra-potent. Within the Highland Santa Marta Gold, there is an acrid and sour phenotype with a fermented touch.
The vegetative stage, in general, reaches a maximum of 20 weeks for the longest plants and 16 weeks for the earliest phenotypes. The intermodal spaces are medium and the leaves are thin, very serrated, and some large. There is a phenotype that grows more upright and thin and it mostly grows with leaves with 3 thin leaflets. The color of the foliage is light lime green and as growth progresses it turns yellow.
The flowering takes 16 weeks for the early phenotypes, and 22 weeks or even longer for the longest flowering ones. The flowers are loose and in some phenotypes, they grow dispersed. One phenotype produces more flowers that grow closer together, they have the wheat spike structure. The Lowland Santa Marta Gold has a powerful, psychoactive, and lysergic effect.
Loose resinous flowers with a golden finish and large calyxes. They are early to grow and bloom compared to other lines from the mountains. (In the mountains there were not only varieties from the lowlands and highlands, there was great diversity but the most outstanding ones that survived these climatic adversities and were most notable were a Santa Marta Gold from the lowlands and another from the highlands. They called this lowland variety “Caturra”, (similar to a variety of coffee that is called like that, Caturra coffee due to a mutation that has been stabilized is small and dwarf. In Colombia, the word “Caturra” refers to people of short stature therefore to the plants coming from the lowlands of Santa Marta, that’s why this variety was locally known as Caturra since around the 90’s and 2000 it was also an earlier golden variety with a little more production.
They also called it the Samarian Gold because that’s what a person from Santa Marta is called: “Samario”. Some called it Pangola. The word “Pangola” refers to Cannabis of low quality and in this case, it is an incorrect term for the Santa Marta Gold varieties, whether the lowland or highland because both produce an extremely active, euphoric, lysergic, vibrant, and cerebral effect. When they refer to “Pangola” as low quality the word is used for those crops that were grown from these long sativas and were harvested earlier because they wanted to sell the flowers quickly, so they didn’t wait long enough for the flowers to be fully mature due to lack of knowledge. So the plants were harvested halfway through their flowering cycle. The result was obviously of lower quality hence the name “Pangola”. These low-quality flowers when sampled would sting the palate and leave a bitter taste in the mouth.
Another way to refer to low-quality cannabis when you do not have a good amount of calyxes and resin is “Cafuche” and “Forcha”. These terms became widespread both among the northern and southern sativa varieties of the interior of the country and in all corners of the country really to refer to cannabis with poor quality harvested earlier. This variety was also exported to several places in the world.
The Santa Marta Gold left an economic mark and represented, more than anything else, a lifestyle rather than just its consumption in Colombia. The large consumers who know and give value to these flowers have always been in North America. For this reason, the difficulty of transporting marijuana to the United States ended up putting an end to the business in Colombia. Forty years after the Bonanza Marimbera, what is being now moved are shipments of cocaine all along the Colombian coast. Likewise, there are shipments of cocaine arriving from the Department of Choco and Nariño that arrive through the Atrato River to the coast of Turbo where they are loaded on trucks.
Year after year, many tons of cocaine leave Colombia for many countries around the world. It is a shame that due to the stigma and clan wars, cannabis cultivation ended radically. What is currently grown in Colombia, both in the North and South, are hybrid genetics that finish very early. These plants are very far from the powerful, psychoactive, lysergic, and psychedelic effects that these legendary varieties from the mountains provided.
Today there are no longer exports of cannabis from the mountains or the south of the country to the United States, only to countries bordering Colombia. There are no longer traces of Santa Marta or other varieties from the south, only hybrid genetics from Europe and the United States are illegally marketed, only hybrids with redundant characteristics and a narcotic effect. People who cultivate in these areas now prefer to grow hybrid genetics with a 3-month cycle, which means they can harvest up to three crops in one year.
Many believe and are sure that they were the indigenous people of the area who carried out the large Cannabis crops or who preserved them (the Arhuacos, the Kogis, the Wiwas, the Kankuamos, all of these descendants of the Tayrona). These statements are simply marketing strategies to increase sales and create fantastic stories to attract people with little knowledge and far from the reality of how these legendary varieties grew in Colombia and who cultivated them. A company in Colombia and other parts of the world claims to have obtained a 500-year-old genetic line in a sacred ritual with Mamos from the Sierra. The Mamos are the spiritual leaders of the indigenous community of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta.
These indigenous cultures of the mountains did not cultivate or cultivate cannabis, not even at the time of the Marimbera Bonanza. They moved further up on the mountains. In their views, beliefs, and medicine they do not use and have not used Cannabis, they see it as something bad, not even as medicine. They are very attached, almost spiritually, to the coca leaf and the mountains. For them cannabis is not important, they like the Coca leaf. “Mambear coca they say: to chew coca. The coca leaf is essential and somewhat spiritual for them.
Since the 17th century, until today, the surviving groups of the Sierra have been given the generic name of Arhuacos, however, they correspond to three different ethnic groups: The Ika, who live in the southern foothills of the Sierra in the surrounding area from San Sebastián de Rábago. The Sanka are in danger of extinction, in the surroundings of Atankez on the South-Eastern slope and the Cogí, who inhabit the valleys of the San Miguel rivers. San Francisco, Palomino, Don Diego, and Buritaca on the northern slope. We want to emphasize again that none of these communities in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta have had any contact with cannabis or used it as medicine.
