Tayrona National Park, Colombia 🇨🇴

I woke up excited for today, and already sweating.  A pretty hot night without air conditioning, it makes me wonder how hot the day will get. We pack our day bags, have an early breakfast and then get a lift to the Tayrona Park entrance. We had been prepared for queues but it’s very quiet, we easily get our tickets and then pay for a shuttle ride to the start of the hikes. It is not even mid morning but I am hot enough to zip my trouser legs off and douse myself in insect repellent. We set off on the route to the main beaches, knowing it’s about an hour to the first beach.

The vegetation is jungle like interspersed with huge boulders. We watch huge red ants carrying leaves scurrying in straight trails, green geckos chasing each other across our path and big blue butterflies. The terrain is easy enough, a bit up and down over the big boulders as we work our way to the sea. We get some great views looking east to Cañaveral before descending to the long beach of Arrecifes. Its breathtaking sand with blue waters is postcard worthy but you can’t swim here due to currents. We push on to pass La Picina which is equally as beautiful, and we reach the famous Cabo San Juan. It’s famous double bay beaches are found on many postcards but it wasn’t as crowded as we expected, so we pitch our towels on a shady spot and plunge into the cool turquoise waters to cool off.

We spend a couple of hours here lazing in the shade or dipping into the water. Reluctantly we leave our paradise spot and start on the walk back. This is much tougher and my face is dripping with sweat, it’s disgusting. We are about halfway back when we hear rustling in the trees, we get to watch the Mico Titi monkeys playing above us which is really cool. 

 We keep going till the shuttle spot and then hop in for a ride back to the entrance, easily then getting a taxi back to our hostel. We feel too gross to just jump in the pool, opting for cold showers instead.  Reflecting on a great day, we cool down with a beer.