Tayrona National Park
First hike done with all the stuff in our backpacks! I can tell you it wasn't pleasant. I, very vise girl, got a brilliant idea to buy huge mangos just before entering the park. At the park there is no roads, only small paths to walk. You can hire a horse to carry your stuff if you feel you can't do it yourself. We started our one hour hike in midday heat, temperature more than +30, humidity close to 100% and not a single breeze! Good luck :)
Tayrona is jungle with beautiful bays. We had chosen to stay at Arrifices and it was as beautiful as we had heard. And now afterwards I am really happy we stayed in Don Pedro campsite. Best location, food places around us, cooking facilities and the best food! None of the other places seemed so good. First days we felt exhausted from the hike, my calfs were killing me, so we just looked around the closest beach options. Aranilla and Piscina being the most popular ones cos you could actually swim there. Closest one to us had too big waves and dangerous rip curls so it wasn't allowed to swim in there, too many people had lost their lives on that beach. But all the beaches were so beautiful with huge rocks and palm trees around the bay. Finding the right path was little trickier, not so many sign posts. But we enjoyed our walks in the jungle, saw many different colors butterflies and birds, lizards, snake, parrot, monkeys and a proper ant highways!
Wednesday we got up really early and headed towards El Pueblito, lost city from thousands of years ago. Hike was steep, rocky and very hot and sweaty. We got to the top after nine and we were boiling! Thousands of years old rock formations in front of us. We saw some indigenous people around the site still living in their huts. This site was small, compared to Machu Picchu or Ciudad Perdida, but still so amazing and left me without words. Who has found that place? Who has built all those roads and houses? How long ago and how long it took? How different is their lives compared tobours? Rest of the way we chilled again on the beach. Cabo San Juan is the busiest campsite, and I can see why. Being next to the beach is great advantage, but it was way too busy and crouded. And the food wasn't made with love.
Sleeping inside the national park, outside in our hammock listening the different sounds of the nature was great. Mosquitos weren't a problem but sandflies were!! It was definitely more relaxing to sleep outside listening crickets than party music from the roof top bar in our hostel! Taganga, where we came yesterday for a dive is more like laid back hippi town, with free life and lots of weed smokers. Reminds me a lot of the Bay Islands in Honduras. People dive during the eay and party all nights. But it was great to see the national park from the sea. It has been too long since my last dive! Oh my! Underwater world is so amazing! We saw murenas, eels, huge lobsters, scorpion fish, trumpet and box fish, angel and parrot fish, duster worms and for me the first time, fire worm!
