Park Tayrona

So I was heading from Taganga to park Tayrona. As a result of my laziness instead of leaving at 8 in the morning as I was planning the day before, I´ve left the village only at 2 in the afternoon. And to get to the park I had to go via Santa Marta, which was really flooded due to the heavy rains. And when I say flooded it really means floods of water running through the streets like mountain rivers, water reaching in good case ankles in worst cases knees, and the only way to cross it is to walk over with your flipflops in your hands. When I finally made it to the entrance of the park it was about 4.30 and to get to the nearest camp I had to walk for another 8-10 km which I had not know at that time.

So I´ve paid the park entrance fee, asked how long it would take me to get to the niceset camp, and started walking. The first 5 km were the a nice paved road with birds singing and rare cars and motobikes passing by. I got to the first camp, but according to everyone a nicer place to stay was further in the jungle and another 4 km to go via a small country road in a jungle forest, and even though it was already getting dark I continued my way. Which was rather stupid because in half an hour I found myself alone in a twilight jungle forest with lots of scary sounds of birds, animals and trees coming from every corner. To cheer myself up I´ve started singing, thinking of what could be worth meeting a wild animal or a wild colombian man on my way. By the time I´ve made it to the nearest camp (which was in the forest not by on the coast) it was already dark and only the tiny flashlight in my cellphone was lightening my way. It turned out that sea shore was just in another 5 minutes of walking and I was nearly ready to continue but when I looked back at a completely dark unknow forest with a knowledge that quite often colombian 5 minuts turn into 50 minutes, I´ve stayed in a hammack for a night in this camp and continued my way in the morning.

I woke up in an amazing forest, with morning sunshine lightening the deep green colors of tall palms, the lungs breething in the clearest air of tropical plants and the hearing enjoying the sounds of unknow birds singing. Somewhere in the distance I could hear waves breaking over the shore so I headed that way. It really was in five minutes and after dropping my backpack in another hammack next to the sea, I headed out to explore the wild beaches of the park. This day I wanted to spend on my own, strolling among the trees, swimming in the sea (btw, you can´t swim everywhere because of the strong currents, which are quite dangerous), listening to the sounds of the sea. And it was so peaceful and joyful spending time with noone around. Of cource at some point there was some local guy who had started accompanying me, but I did not want to talk to anyone and was tired of being nice to everyone, so I just told him to go away. This was how my day passed, walking along virgin beaches, swimming, reading and feeling the nature. I have seen a baby donkey there. And in the evening over the full length of sea horizon I was enjoying the brightest rainbow.

In the evening, while waiting for my food in a restaurant (the food in the park in nearly 2 times more expensive then in the rest of Colombia) I´ve met two Lithuanian guys. It was so nice talking to them, because even though they are not Russian, but we still have common past and are more alike in our mentality then with the other foreigners. We talked in Russian, discussed lot´s of stuff, including politics, which I really enjoyed after all this meaningless similar conversation with other travellers. In the final end they offered me an extra bed they had in their cabanio, which I happily excepted because even though I like sleeping in a hammack, the back is quite aching in the morning. Also before coming to the park I bought coockies for the Indian, but in the night we ate them all, so Indians were left without coockies. Well that is their fault because the did not show up earlie, in reality they did not show up at all, and I have seen only one Indian boy in a distance.

The next day I flew back to Bogota.