After Minca I caught a mini bus back to Santa Marta, then immediately went from here to Palomino- 2 hours and many, many stops away!! Palomino is east of Tayrona National Park and I decided to make it my base before and after the park as I found a great hostel there- quiet, lots of space, lots of birds and no one else there!! Palomino has a very long beach with good waves for surfing, though the water is relatively muddy in comparison to the calm Caribbean waters that I got used to.
I repacked my hiking bag to leave the big bag behind and headed on the bus the next day to the secondary entrance to the park- western most one- from Calabazo village. By the time I had breakfast and the bus dropped me off it was 10am and hot!!! Then I found out that we are in high season apparently- all of June and July is high season even though it wasnāt school holidays yet! This means an even higher cost for foreigners than normalā¦oh the joys!!
I had a 3-hour hike from the gate to Playa Brava. The hike is mainly uphill through the forest and then a steep downhill to the beach. The forest is dotted with large wild figs and the scary sounds of howler monkeys! I remember them from the Amazon- 10 years ago. The ground is also covered with dead leaf debris and I couldnāt help but wonder when I am going to step on a viper of some type???
With the heat and humidity, I was relieved that a fairly large portion of this hike was in shady forest.
I arrived at the beach at 1pm- and picked a hammock for the night. There was an undercover circular area where there were about 10 of them, hanging centrally from a middle pole and radiating out. I dropped my bag and headed to the water to wash off all the dust which, mixed with the sweat on my legs had turned to mud. As I walked out of the enclosure I said hello to a couple who were lying on the grass and realised it was the Canadian /Australian couple that I had spent the trip to Minca with!! So we caught up on the last few days. They only came down for the day- and wished they stayedā¦same conversation we had relating to Minca!
I was looking forward to a quiet time at the beach until two large groups walked inā¦. at least there is plenty of beach place for everyone to be out of each otherās way š
When everyone was having dinner I grabbed a chair on the beach and checked out the stars- havenāt seen them in ages!! The sky was fairly cloudless and the moon had not come out yet.
It was my first time sleeping in a hammock- letās say it was not a comfortable night!! Great to relax in, but in my opinion not great to sleep in. I woke up with the sun, had ābreakfastā of granola biscuits and an apple on the beach and headed off towards Cabo San Juan āthe most popular beach in the park and thus generally loaded with people! Though I intended to camp at a campsite east from there.
It was due to be a 2.5-hour hike to get here. The route starts out flat, through a river bed, then climbs for most of the way- a tough slog!! It was made tougher by the fact that I got really bad chaffing from the day before and I was raw! The salty sweat made it a lot worse- and in my great discomfort I decided that I would walk all the way to the eastern most camp site from where you can catch a shuttle to the main road, to catch a bus back to Palomino and spend the night at my hostel. The hike to Cabo San Juan goes past the nudist beach first- I arrived here to the scurry of 5 guys who were naked and didnāt expect anyone to come out of the forest āclearly!! They all giggled like girls and ran for the bushes! Then casually walked past me in their board shorts. I just laughed.
At this stage I was walking like a cowboy to try alleviate some pain, though it wasnāt really working. I reached Cabo San Juan in over 3 hours- so my pace was slower than planned. I had a snack of more granola biscuits and enjoyed the view and the beach without too many people, then carried on towards Arrecife. Luckily the first part of this was flat- a welcome change. Though there was a large increase in volume of people coming in for the day- hordes of people trekking in their flip flops. There are many stairs across the large boulders that are a feature of the landscape as well as through the forest.
After a much longer than recommended walk/wobble I got to the camp site, had a bit of a rest and headed towards Canaveralā¦ where the shuttle is! This took about 1 Ā¼ hoursā¦ even though the recommended time was 50min. However I made it!
I had been looking forward to a drink since early this morningā¦ so when I hit the town I figured I would grab lunch and a drink. However, town was strange- super quiet- despite it being lunch time. All the shops and business were closed and few people on the streets. It turns out that there were some pamphlets handed out- however I cannot get to what was on them exactly; however, it threatened everyone to close their business down- not sure why though? Luckily there was a restaurant, part of a hostel that had not closed, so I grabbed late lunch there and ordered a drink- to which the waitress replied that they had no one to make it!!!!!
The next day the businesses were still closed. I took the bus to Santa Marta in the morning as I had a flight the next day. At least Santa Marta was operating as normal.
2 replies on “Tayrona NP”
a gdzie nudysci?
Awesome updates Jo. Thank you. Sure hope you are better!š¤