Tayrona

I’m so proud of us today! We woke up early to catch a bus from the middle of the city to Tayrona National Park famous for secluded beaches and hiking. According to Amanda’s pedometer, we walked 10 miles and over 22,000 steps! I’m especially proud considering the humidity and how tough the Colombian sun is - I’m so burnt!

Here’s a photo of our bus ride through the city and to the park, which took about an hour and cost about $2 or 7,000 pesos.



The entrance to the park with a map - from the entrance you can walk to the trail or take a bus which we did and got to sit in the front seat. We enjoyed the American mix that our driver was playing:





Some photos of our hiking experience:

We saw monkeys!



And several secluded beaches:

We had breakfast at a restaurant at one of the campsites - an arepas with egg!:

More beach...

You can kind of see Amanda in the water - we waded in, played in the waves, and napped under the palm trees:

We saw many lizards:



Here’s the Welcome sign to Cabo - where all the backpackers and campers hang out and the end of our hike. Along the way, we saw several people from our hotel afternoon yesterday by the pool:

Beach at Cabo - so blue!:

On our return, we saw this guy, very common in South America:

Our return was tiring, but we made it back with very little wait times for the small bus within the park and then the bus back to Santa Marta. Instead of going to the hotel first, we opted for an early dinner

Amanda had researched a restaurant called La Canoa, where I had delicious lemonade and langoustines with coconut rice while Amanda had yummy chicken - all in an air conditioned room. Here’s a collage:

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel and jumped in the pool and shook off the sand from our things on the deck. We enjoyed the sunset and the moonlight as we washed off the grime and sweat from the day. We were pleased with our day’s accomplishments as we packed for Cartagena!