my two year adventure: tayrona park

early friday morning we headed to tayrona park, which in theory was not far from santa marta. we had the lady at the hostel call a cab. our cab driver spoke no english and spoke muy rapido (very fast). given the fact that cabs are somewhat sketchy we were already on high alert, however, about 5 minutes into our trip, our cab driver told us he could not drive us there and that we would have to switch to a cab his brother was driving. it took him about 6x repeating the same explanation before we understood what was happening even though we still had no idea why. now 15 minutes into our ride, he pulled over and another cab pulled up behind us and we did the switch with still no idea why and if we would be safe (since I am writing this after the fact you know that we survived). after a long ride to the state park, we began our hiking adventure!

quick side note: colombians are insane drivers. if the car in front is going too slowly (all one lane roads in each direction) they will just drive around next to them to pass them. while this may seem normal, they do not care if any oncoming traffic is coming - to the point to you will have three cars on a two lane road. awesome.

ok now time to describe the park. to get to the beaches, you have to go through a forest on a two hour hike. part of the hike included nice paved paths (see pics below), but most was being creative stepping over branches and up the side of hills. the scenery was beautiful; however, it was very hot. i think the combination of sun screen and bug spray made us more sweaty than usual (tons of mosquitos in the park and as you may know there is NOTHING i hate more than mosquitos).

i won't bore you with details of the hike, but i have included pics below. after an hour and a half of hiking we made it to arrecifes, the first campsite and a place to grab lunch. the fresh pineapple juice was so refreshing. after lunch we hiked a little further, expecting another 20 minutes until our desired location. this 20 minutes turned into over an hour of additional hiking; however, it was totally worth it. we rented hammocks to sleep in for the night at cabo san jan and sat by the beach for the rest of the afternoon. they actually had a restaurant and mini convenience store type thing where you could purchase drinks and snacks. i had arroz con pollo and it was delicious. not quite as good as alma's (homemade arroz con pollo i had growing up) but still very tasty.

we slept in hammocks with mosquito nets covering us (forgot to take photo so included one i found on the internet). i was amazed at how effective those nets were - i ended up with only two bites from the whole trip! truly a miracle. we woke up to the sound of coconuts falling from the trees as the locals were in the trees cutting them down - I assume or safety reasons. if I thought the bathroom situation was less than ideal at the hostel, this was disgusting. I used the ocean to shower and such.

all day sunday we hung out by the beach and went swimming in the ocean. so nice to relax! I have included several photos below. they brought the supplies for the store by mules and horses.

we found a way to get back to town by boat without hiking back three hours and it was worth every peso! on the boat ride back, i lost my hat - the boat ride was pretty rough (kinda terrifying since there were signs throughout the park saying not to swim in certain locations because of the frequency of drowning). the boat took us into the fishing village of taganga - which was colorful and full of life! a little unsafe so i did not take out my camera to take pictures.