Week 22:Barranquilla, Santa Marta, Tayrona National Park

June 29: After spencer left we stayed in barranquilla and relaxed for a day.  We mainly hung out in the hotel and watched netflix.

30 After our stay in Barranquilla, we headed to Santa Marta and booked a room in someone’s house. Unfortunately, the owner was not there when we arrived. Fortunately, Colombians are extremely nice and the next door neighbors helped us get into contact with him and we spent a good time talking with them and hanging out.

After getting into the hotel we wandered around the city for a while again. We went to the beach and planned our trip to Tayrona park. We spent the night packing our bags and then went to bed.

July 1: After breakfast, we took a bus to Tayrona park. We met another person who was going to stay there a few days and we ended up having lunch together. The park requires you to watch a safety video and it was, I believe, $42,000 pesos ($14) for each person to get in. After finally entering the park, we skipped the first campsite and headed straight to the second. The boulders and the beach and the mountains gave us a spectacular view. The walk wasn’t very hard since they created neat walkways that made it easier. This is where we discovered what I consider the “black, evil gnats”. They stay near fresh water and their bites hurt worse than mosquitos and they itch like crazy! Fortunately, they don’t stray too far from water.

After wandering a little bit more, we finally found our campsite and set up our hammocks in a shelter built for them. Our campsite was better than I expected! (I did expect some shelter and maybe one bathroom, but that’s it.) They had a kitchen, a little convenient store, showers, bathrooms, a tv, and electricity in some areas for a little bit of the day. The mosquitos weren’t bad at all!

Once we got settled in, we decided to take the 10 minute walk to the beach and oh-my-goodness was it gorgeous! We spent a good time just sitting there and watching the waves since they said that it was unsafe to swim because of the currents. The view was spectacular!

Then, we got up and kept wandering further. We found a fresh water pond right next to the beach which was a nice little scene and as we continued we found yet another beach! We didn’t go down into it, but we decided that the next day we were going to go first thing. We went home, barely making it before dark. We had a good dinner, read a little, and then we went to bed.

Wednesday June 1

The next morning, we got up and had a pretty big breakfast and headed to that beach. It was soooo nice and we met up with our friend with whom we had lunch with the other day and another guy originally from India, but living in the United States.

We talked about all the usual stuff you’re not supposed to talk about with new friends like politics, economics, etc. I honestly haven’t felt so uneducated in a long time and it was wonderful to be surrounded by people who had different opinions, but a good education. It made me want to study even more!!

After hanging out, we decided to go and get our bags and move to the next campsite, hoping that they had space! We heard it was very busy.

We stayed in line for a while, trying to check in, but after we did we discovered an even nicer camping spot.

Since boats take people to this particular spot, it had a nicer restaurant, a bigger area for camping, and a bigger beach. It also had a lot more people! We made some new friends and spent the next few hours setting up, hanging out, eating, chilling on the beach, and playing card games with new friends! We went to bed exhausted after a full, fun day.

Thursday June 2

This was our final day in Tayrona park and we had to walk the few hours back to the entrance. We took our time eating breakfast and spending even more time on the beach hanging out, swimming, and reading.

We then left to head back. We took our time walking back, but also keeping a good pace.

After getting to the entrance, we decided to stay just a little longer to check out Carnaveral Beach. We spent a bit of time there, watching the sea gulls, admiring the super long beach, enjoying the ocean breeze on top of some boulders we climbed. We only saw three people on the massive beach during the hour we were there.

After that, we took the shuttle back to the entrance and headed back to Santa Marta and back to our old room.

We showered and relaxed and that night we forced ourselves to get out of the room again. We went out to watch the NBA game at our old hostel, La Brisa Loca, then went to bed!

Friday June 3

We woke up and had a good morning. Packing up, we planned our next adventure into Taganga to see what scuba diving was all about.

It was a short taxi ride, only $10,000, and we arrived into the bay (maybe a cove?) into Taganga. We checked into our hostel and then headed to the beach.

My first impression wasn’t so spectacular, but it was probably because the first things I smelled were fish and trash and the ocean was more brown than blue. I’m spoiled, I know.

Either way, as we continued, we saw a lot of stores that offered scuba diving lessons, lots of seafood, and a lot of people.

Saturday June 4

This day, we had a leisurely morning. We had a rainy morning and spent it eating and reading at this baguette shop down the street.

After, we went shopping for scuba diving packages. Most of them are essentially the same thing: packages of $640,000-$680,000 with pictures, different special locations, and mostly the same amount of dives, etc. We chose Calipso mainly for the people, the location of our first dive, and because they didn’t talk badly about other companies in the area.

Then, we walked about 20 minutes to the other beach just over a hill. The views were beautiful even though the mountains were brown from lack of rain.

We rented some chairs and swam in the ocean before we headed back to the town. We caught the sunset and then went out to eat at a place called Tacos – they had amazing quesadillas and is located right by the ocean.

After that, we went to bed to rest before the next morning!