After a decade of owning a cell phone, you really take for granted their powerful convenience. Despite our best intentions to meet Manuel and Cecilia the next day in Santa Marta, we somehow missed each other and had no way to remedy the situation. I had discussed with them specifically where in Tayrona we planned to go, so after an hour of waiting, Russ, Johnnie, Jackie and I bought some food and water and climbed into a small, hot bus for the hour ride up to the entrance of the park.
As we drove east, our driver anxiously passing any vehicle he could overtake, the desert gradually gave way to the jungle. By the time we got out at the entrance of the park, we were fully engulfed in a menagerie of trees, vines, birds, and bugs. We grabbed a couple snacks and paid our way into the park, setting us back 31,000 pesos (about $15). From there we paid a guy 2,000 pesos each for a ride to the end of the road in his rusted out 80's Suburban. He somehow squeezed 12 or 13 people into there, and made the trip extra anxious for me by putting our bags on the roof without tying them down before racing uphill through the jungle. My laptop's life flashed before my eyes.
We came to the end of the road, hiked about 15 minutes through the incredibly thick jungle, and arrived at a horse stable where we rented a horse for 16,000 pesos to carry our bags and heavy 5 liter bottles of water for us to the first camp on the beach. It was surreal following the narrow trail through the hot jungle, leading a cranky horse by a rope. Occasionally he would decide he didn't want to go anymore, and it took a lot of negotiating to get him moving again. Thankfully there were a few Colombians walking by who apparently speak horse, because they made a simple noise and got him to walk after we struggled with two people pulling on his rope for 5 or 10 minutes.
An hour-long hike later brought us to the first camp, a sprawling set of tent sites, a few restaurants, and a hammock shelter right on the beach. A sign as we came into the camp read, “Welcome to Paradise” and they weren't kidding. Picture-perfect palm trees and thatched roof huts were backdropped by a wide, beautiful beach that had huge, round rock formations and bright blue water that we normally only see in photos.
From there, we switched to a new horse for the next leg of the hike to our camp at the acclaimed Cabo beach (the one in the picture at the top of this blog). Another 45 minute hike, this time hugging the beach and cutting through sandy jungle sections, and we were in Cabo. It seemed fictional, like a scene conjured up by an author or a painter. The campground was filled with tents, a small soccer field, and a basketball court-sized shelter covering a hammock area and the dining area of Cabo's only restaurant. Just fifteen feet from the dining area, we walked on to the most fantastic beach imaginable. Words cannot do justice to the pristine sand, waves, palm trees, massive rock formations, and jungle that dominated the scene.
We checked in and got our hammocks that cost 15,000 pesos per night and looked around the beach and the campground. Everywhere we looked, there was life: big frogs, long lines of ants carrying cut leaves, birds of all shapes and sizes, lizards, and once dark, bats. The people at the camp looked like they were right out of an Abercrombie ad. The long, hot trek required to get to Cabo filters out the average family or older tourist, leaving the camp full of fit young Colombians and backpackers.
The shower situation at Cabo was pretty primative, just some cold water spouts coming out of a tiled wall opposite the bathrooms. Showering outdoors in your swimsuit isn´t so bad, but getting your foot bitten by an enormous Cutter ant is definitely no fun, as Russ discovered right away.
Just after dark, Manuel and Cecilia showed up, having caught a later bus after dealing with some errands in Santa Marta that had delayed them meeting us. We grabbed dinner with them, Johnnie and Jackie, and a couple from Ireland that we met in the dining area. The food at the restaurant wasn´t good, but it wasn´t inedible. Russ and I both ordered spaghetti, and weren't surprised by the usual Colombian combination of slightly overcooked pasta and oddly flavored, bland sauce. We hung out with the group and were joined by some rowdy Colombians, who were excited to hang out and show us some songs on their guitar.
The camp is powered by a gas generator, so at around 10pm it was lights out, and we headed for our hammocks. They were surprisingly comfortable. Falling asleep to the sound of the waves of the Caribbean a few feet away is pretty easy – I could definitely get used to this.
We awoke the next day early and had breakfast as the morning sun started heating up the jungle air. Afterwards we threw on our swimsuits and set out to explore the incredible rock formations that frame the two beaches closest to the campground. House-sized round boulders separate the beaches, graced by a cabana at top that gives the beach an extra dose of tropical paradise flavor. During the day the cabana is empty, so we were able to take some great pics of the sparkling bright blue waters from its open walls. Extending further out from the beach, we climbed /across the boulders, looking down between them to see the ocean moving 20 feet below.
That afternoon we joined Johnnie, Jackie, and the Irish couple to hike up to Pueblito, the ruins of an ancient town high up in the jungle above Cabo. The hike begins innocently enough, tracing a path through banana and palm trees that litter the sandy soil with broken coconuts. After passing through a couple natural tunnels underneath massive boulders, the trail winds a steep path straight into the jungle, up stone staircases built by the residents of the Pueblito ruins so long ago, across stone crevasses bridged by a couple of precariously placed rocks, along creeks and giant twisting trees, with tarzan-worthy vines and unrelenting heat reminding us that we were really in the jungle.
After two hours, the path levels out again and opens up into the ruins of Pueblito, a series of fields connected by rock paths, with two-foot high circular stone rings that once were the foundations of the huts that filled the town. According to the sign as we entered, 2,000 people once lived there, and no one knows why or exactly when it was abandoned. Amazingly, there are still two huts in the middle of the ruins near the creek that divides it, inhabited by a few indigenous Kogi who are the likely descendants of the original residents.
We saw a couple kids appear, wearing white head to toe, with pointy striped hats, carrying bundles of firewood around the back of one of the huts. We explored the rest of the ruins before heading back down the trail in only an hour, taking the stone staircases two steps at a time.
A big hike in the sweltering jungle was the perfect set up for our first swim in the Caribbean. We immediately jumped into the water along the nearest beach to the camp. It was slightly colder than I expected, but after a minute it was spectacular. The water is so blue and not as salty as the Pacific. We swam for a bit, then hiked back past the other beach and along some sandy trails, hopping over trails of Cutter ants carrying bright green leaves, and ended up on yet another empty tropical beach. Unlike the two beaches nearest the camp that are protected by reefs, this beach opened up into the ocean and was covered with huge chunks of driftwood. It was awesome.
The remainder of our three days in Parque Tayrona were a cycle of chilling on the beach and swimming during the day, and hanging out with our friends for a while after dinner before the lights cut out early every night. On our last night, following a colossal rainstorm, we walked out onto the nearest beach and noticed something incredible that we had never seen before. As each wave washed across the sand, they brought little glowing blue-green specks of what I'm guessing is phosphorus. We could pick the sand grain-sized orbs up while they were still glowing, moving them between our fingers for a minute before the glow slowly faded. It felt like something out of a dream.
The next day we headed back out on the trail through the jungle. Parque Tayrona is my favorite place on earth.
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