Paradise on Earth... apart from the beds!!
Trip Start
Jul 21, 2011
1
31
44
Trip End
Jan 27, 2012
Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona, Magdalena, Colombia
Monday, October 3, 2011
Headed out on bus and then walked the 2 hours to the spot where we were going to stay the night. It was baking hot that day and the views of the coastline were magnificent. Huge boulders of rock in the sea and the waves crashing against them. We met a crazy old Columbian man who was lugging a huge backpack with a tent. There are actually only a couple of spots to swim at park Tyrona, one being the last campsite on the trek San Juan . When we got there it was like a picture postcard scene the is a huge rock formation that goes into the sea and on top of that was the hut we ended up sleeping in. Ive not slept a hammock all night before so it was going to be an experience. They do cram you up there but it's worth the view and cool wind that blows in.
There is only one place to eat and it's not cheap but you don't really mind. We got changed and jumped into the sea while the was still sunlight . It's pretty rough even in the swimming areas but there was a sense of achievement having walked the 2 hours in the baking sun.
That night we ate with an Isralie guy and some Argentinian girls. We had a laugh and a couple of very expensive beers and then walked back up the to rock to bed / hammocks. The sound of the sea crashing against the rocks was soothing and the cool breeze was lovely to fall asleep to.
Day 2
There we some people who had stayed at San Juan for almost a week but to be honest a day was enough for us and we had breakfast and got our things together. There are basically 3 options to get back to civilisation:-
1) walk back the 2 hours along the beach to the entry point of the park
2) get on a boat ( that we didn't have enough money for)
3) walk to pueblito ( remains of a town , from an old civilisation ) and walk another 2 hours to the road where you can pick up a bus.
In my infinite wisdom I thought we should do 3 as it was something different and we didn't have the money to do 2. So we headed out and the trek became pretty rugged in parts as we had to walk up massive holders that the ancient civilisation use to worship. There was a few cuts and bruises but we got to the top , hot and sweaty but safe and sound. We walked round the ruins and then worried about the time we thought we better carry on walking down the other side of the valley. However a slight moment of panic hit over us both about how good the trail might be and if we might get lost so we spoke to a boy selling drinks at the site if he could show us the way back as he was going that way. We agreed a price and then headed down. As we stared to leave the site the boy pulled out a little pot and asked us if we wanted to buy some coke and I'm not talking about the type you have in the fridge at home!!! We declined and asked him if he took it and how old he was! He was 14 and did it every day. He was a good lad and took us as far as his home and then we walked the rest of the way. Parul at this point was starting to get annoyed at me for choosing this option. It took us over 5 1/2 hours of trekking to get from our campsite to the road side . I was definitely in the bad books again! We jumped into a bus and then a taxi back to our hostel and found out we could get a night bus to Bogota that night so we had a show at the hostel and headed straight out.
We jumped on the nicest bus we could find and went to sleep all the way to Bogota which was a 15 hour bus ride!!
