Tayrona National Park

8 January 2014

Well, this was an interesting day...

I was lucky to get a bus straight away to the park, only COP6000, but I wasn't prepared to sit next to a man who was sweating onto me and snorting as his nose ran every five seconds for the hour-long journey. When we got to the entrance at 10am there was already a huge queue to buy a pass into the park. At high season the price is COP37500, and even though there were only 15 people in front of me, it was almost 40 mins of waiting to pay. I don't know what they were doing in that cashier box, but being efficient wasn't one of them! Me and the foreigners around me had a nice little bitch about South American customer service.

Once out of line I jumped on the first available bus that drove me 10 mins up the road to the start of the walking track. I could have walked it, but it was too bloody hot and the bus had air conditioning. I think it may have been a tour bus, because I didn't have to pay...whoops. Oh well.

The walk took the better part of an hour (I was walking pretty quickly). The first half was pretty hot because I was far from the beach and there was no breeze. Just oppressive jungle heat. Ugh! I saw heaps of little ant parades (mostly because they were all carrying bits of leaves 10 times bigger than themselves and it looked weird seeing the mast on the jungle floor moving by itself!). I also saw monkeys (did you know they sound like really loud crickets? They make a staccato chirping sound!) and one really big tropical rat (think the size of a wombat...or a very large house cat. Ewwww!).

There were several beaches in the last stretch of the walk, mostly too dangerous to swim. There were rip tides everywhere and hidden rocks. I came to the second-to-last beach to swim. It was great. Small, with granular sand like rock salt (best exfoliation my feet have had in ages!), and the wáter was neck-high only 2 metres out in the waves. And the waves were perfect for relaxation; what my mum calls 'hump waves'. They don't break. They just lift you up and down gently and break on the sand. I got a lot of stares because I was the whitest person on the beach. Curse my Irish heritage! The swim suits here are so colourful and come in weird and wonderful shapes! I think I better buy a few to take home because they sell nothing like them in Australia, and that's unusual because we are a beach country. But then again I am in the carribean... 

It's funny, but there seems to be an abundance of women here with no compunction about wearing g-string bathers, and also an over-abundance of women with posteriors so huge that their bathing bottoms don't cover anything. I know one particular American friend of mine who would be in heaven. He loves big booties.

The last beach is the biggest, and the safest place to swim because it's so shallow and calm. But I'm glad I stopped at my beach. I prefer deep wáter and 'hump waves'.

The walk back was hard. It was mostly down-hill towards the end, but it was hotter than midday! It was like all the heat took all day to settle in the jungle. It was the kind of heat that I just had to stand helplessly in because there was no escape. My whole body was throbbing, and my hands swelled up to twice their normal size. My head felt like it was steaming, and I drank about a litre of wáter before I realised that it wasn't cooling me down, but making me feel sick because I drank too fast. Waaaah! I should have taken the damn horse ride back!

Luck was with me again back at the start point. Straight on a bus back to the entrance (COP2000) and then straight on an air-conditioned bus back to Santa Marta (COP6000).

Back in Santa Marta I had the best cold shower of my life, then went out for dinner. I can recommend La Canoa (The Canoe) in Calle 18 to anyone. I had glazed pork tenderloin with caramelized onions, baby tomatoes, mushrooms and thin slices of potato. I ate so slowly because I was in heaven. I also ordered a large mango juice, which was way larger than I thought. I had to take some with me when I left!

When people approach me on the street asking for something my knee-jerk reaction is to say 'no' and think get the hell away from me! A homeless dude was eating his dinner and walking along like a drunk person, and he actually asked me for a sip of my juice! My germophobe sensibilities were horrified and I quickly hurried away, but after a few minutes to think I realised 'I'm full, and he's just finished eating and is probably thirsty', so I doubled back and gave him the whole glass. The hell I was gonna share it with him! Ugh!

On the way back, I saw a dance group practising a traditional dance for an upcoming festival in the church square. I love how kids always get in the way without realising it, and no one has the heart to tell them off. A toddler wandered into the middle of the dancers, looking around in awe, and messed up the dance totally. The choreographer yelled at the dancers, who pointed helplessly at the kid. He called out for a parent to come get him, and no one even moved! A dancer had to lead him away and sit him down on the stairs. Useless parents. I hate it when they don't control and take care of their own bloody offspring!