Colombia Part 19 - Trekking in the Tayrona National Park, Day One: The Jungle (Photos + Videos)

Leaving the touristy city of Cartagena, Kathi and I took a bus to Santa Marta, where we stayed one night to rest and left our big backpacks, just taking the necessary stuff out to spend a few days hiking at the Tayrona Nationalpark!!

As you can already see on the map, this park is gigantic!! It is located between Taganga and the Rio Peidras and covers 15,000 hectares of jungle, beaches and sea, reaching up to 900 metres above sea level. In 1969, this area were proclaimed as natural park due to the high biological and archaeological value it possess -The park is the most bio-diverse spot on the Colombia’s Caribbean coastline.

As I learned afterwards, there are three different official entrees to the park and you also have the possibility to take a boat directly to Cabo Beach from Tanganga, but we just took a regular bus to a random entree.

Right before entering the park we already had to reserve a hammock at our first stop, Don Pedro Camping in the jungle, because as it is a national park, there are just a certain amound of people per day allowed to be in the park.

After paying the entrance fee and getting a little information talk about how to treat the flora and fauna environmentally sustainable, we started our walk through the jungle.

The temperature ranges between 25ºC and 32ºC, since it extends from 0 - 900 m above sea level and has two rainy periods: from May to June and the other from September to November, so it was very humid and exhausting to walk.

The first 4 km are roads and then you get to the actual hiking trail. Once inside of the park there are several walking trails leading to beaches and inland jungle areas. There are some wooden walkways, stairs and ladders across rocky sections, through mangroves and up to high hilltops for bay views.

After a few kilometers the trail looks like this though and you have to climb up a lot, crossing big rocks, rivers and mangroves and avoiding big parts of mud.

It got quite exhausting at some point, climbing up the hills, sliding it down on the other side and jumping from one big rock to the other.

On our 4 hrs walk we sometimes took a break to drink a coconut, offered by the locals, living in the park.

The Natural Park was before the conquest an area in which the indigenous Tayronas coexisted, leaving significant evidence of their passage through that land. Now you can see them walking around and observing the tourists, or even selling them stuff.

While we took that break all of the sudden a group of monkeys came by!! They are so cute and it is always special to see them in there natural sourroundings.

The are more than 200 species of birds living in the park ranging from hawks to toucans. Apart from the dusky titi monkeys there are also red squirrels, collared peccaries and even jaguars living here. It’s amazing what you might come across here. Sometimes we heard fearsome roar and always asked ourselves what it could be, until we saw that it was a tiny from causing the commotion!

After a while we could hear the ocean for the first time, which kind of animated us to go faster :D The vegetation around us changed a bit from big trees to palm treets and aAt some point we could already see it.Then like 20 min after we got to the first beach on our way: Playa nudista.

It’s very likely you’ll be on the only people on this trail and you’ll feel like an intrepid explorer discovering lost civilisations for the first time. There is no need for a guide as there’s basically only one well sign posted path. The markers can be found all over the park and let you know how much of the journey has been completed in percentage terms.

After the beach we had to cross another 20 minutes of rainforest to get to Don Pedro Camping in the middle of the jungle!

The camping area is pretty big, of course there is no wifi and we had the choice between sleeping in a tent or a hammock. I brought my own hammock with me and Kathi rented the one next to mine. Imagining to sleep outside in the jungle was a bit scary but also kind of cool... and at least we had mosquito nets ;)

Every guests also gets a little locker to put things in.

Here we found another interesting animal! I have never seen something like that before and still don´t really know what it is :D

So after this 4 hour walk we decided to strech a bit, do some yoga and take a bath after.

I also didn´t expect to see a cat as pet for a camping in the jungle of a rainforest national park :D - That was kind of cool!

So after that we finally got a shower, had some food and met some really funny guys (especially peter), with who we would spend time the next few days.

Peter was so nice to help us with the mosquito spray :D:D - As you can see he was fully in his element.

It was already late so after that we enjoyed our well deserved beer... and maybe a few more :D , hanging out with the guys until it was time to sleep... in the jungle :)

As always I hope you enjoyed reading my post and I am grateful for every Upvote, Resteem and Comment, as you are supporting my travels with it!!

Cheers,
Liz

Colombia Part 1: Bogota D.C. - A city full of history and culture!

Colombia Part 2: Guatavita Lagoon, The Muisca Civilisation and The Legend of "El Dorado"

Colombia Part 3 - The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá (Fotos + Video)

Colombia Part 4 - Adventure time at the Natural Pools of Guejar River in the Jungle (Photos + Videos)

Colombia Part 5 - Flying to Macarena National Park being a Copilot

Colombia Part 6 - The Rainbow River at Macarena National Park

Colombia Part 7 - Riding Motor Bike and Chilling in the Pools of the Tatacoa Desert

Colombia Part 8 - Enjoying civilization in Cali!

Colombia Part 9 - Living with the president of the orchids club,helping her out at the green house

Colombia Part 10 - Hiking and Feeding Hummingbirds in the middle of the impressive Flora of Montanitas

Colombia Part 11 - Visiting the typical colonial city of Salento

Colombia Part 12 - Learning how to make coffee at a real coffee farm in Salento

Colombia Part 13 - Horseback riding to a waterfall and hiking at Cocora Valley

Colombia Part 14 - Swimming at the hot springs of Santa Rosa de Cabal

Colombia Part 15 - Doing an adventurous Graffiti Tour through the Favelas of Medellin at Commune 13

Colombia Part 16 - Ziplining, hiking, blow jumping and jet skiing at the lagunas of Guatapé

Colombia Part 17 - Paragliding over the city of Medellin

Colombia Part 18 - Arriving in the capital of the caribbean side: Cartagena de Indias