After being away from our base hostel near Santa Marta and a relaxed night in Palomino, Kirsty, Linda and I got the bus back. Unfortunately Kirsty was struck with some horrible bug that floored her, she had been struggling silently for days and when a extremely high, rapid fever took over on the bus back to the hostel we headed straight for a hospital where she was seen quite quickly (after paying quite a large cash deposit). She was given some medications and sent on her way. She needed to rest up for a few days at least so decided to stay out in Calle 11 for a few days.
Reassured that she would be fine, Linda and I decided to go the famous Tayrona National Park for a night. We got a public bus from Santa Marta to Tayrona park for about $2. Entry to the park was about $14...bring your passport! I unfortunately had not and had left my photocopy stupidly in my backpack back in the hostel. Thankfully Linda had hers and after some sweet talking we managed to get around it. Tayrona can be done as a day trip but after numerous people advising us to stay in Cabo San Juan (a popular beach with hammocks and tents for overnight stays in the park) we decided to take overnight bags with us. We took a $3 mini bus up to the first 'drop off' which was well worth it seeing as the next two hours was spent hiking/wading through mud, rivers, beaches and puddles. I ended up going barefoot through the swamps for the last hour.....squelchy. We finally arrived at Cabo San Juan and paid $6 for a hammock each for the night (after me again trying to get around the fact that I had no ID with me).
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| The beach in Cabo de la Vela |
We bumped straight into a fellow Dubliner called Gav who was on our Punta Gallinas trip and Linda and I headed for the lovely beach. Within about four hours we were quick to discover why our hike up was so.....squelchy. The rain came......and only briefly stopped for an hour or so during the night. Everyone was driven into the restaurant area due to the rain where the whole night was spent having some (eh uh) drinks and playing a mammoth game of ring of fire with Irish, English, Italian, Polish and German contributors. With only two power cuts interrupting the games.
After a pretty late one, we were woken at 5am by TORRENTIAL rain, thunder and lightening storms! Good when you're sleeping under a thatched roof in a hammock. By 9am the rain hadn't eased off much so Linda and I decided to just make a break for it....I'm still not sure if this was a good or bad idea. We ended up wading through swamps, getting lost in forests trying to take shortcuts and getting soaked for the next two hours back packs and all. Drenched! We got back to Calle 11 by lunchtime to check on poor lil Kirsty who was struggling through with fluids and well...life in general. We both agreed that she definitely needed some more time to recover. We had already booked overnight buses to Medellin so I decided to head down and we planned to rendez vous again once she was feeling better.
Next Stop: Medellin, Colombia
Bars/Restaurants: nil. Food and drinks in Tayrona but try bring your own because it's expensive.
Food/Drink: same as above
Stayed: Hammocks in Tayrona national park, you can't book these so it works on first come, first serve!
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