Tayrona!

Linda Michel & I arriving at the waterfall

For the second long weekend in June, a group was going to Tayrona National Park, northeast along the coast just past Santa Marta. I had been here during my 2009 trip for a day and it was beautiful, but a bit more crowded and noisy than how I normally picture a national park. This time I chose a different route starting from a less popular park entrance. Derval and started off with a strenuous 3 hour hike to a lesser known beach, Playa Brava, to spend the night there. It was a beautiful and solitary hike, which was fine except that the trail wasn't always very well marked. If we weren't sure where we were going, we plunked ourselves down for a bit and sooner or later someone (usually carrying a machete--seems almost everyone has one here!) would come along to help us figure out the way.

Great roots!

Playa Brava was definitely less popular and also didn't look quite as luxurious as it seemed in the photos on their website. We were the only guests there but were greeted by a man, woman and her cute, chatty 8 year old girl. We ended up going on a hike with little Linda Michel to a waterfall and spent a nice afternoon. Four more people showed up in the evening and we all enjoyed the great peace and quiet in that beautiful setting.

Entering Pueblito

The next day, Derval and I set out to hike another strenuous route to meet up with the rest of the group at the "popular" beach. We had seen the turn off to this trail on our way down the previous day and were planning to reverse our steps to that point. Our host told us there was a short cut, basically the hypotenuse to meet up with that trail, that would save us quite a bit. We figured it would be great to go a totally new route. He led us to the trail head (really a dry river bed) & told us to go straight until we see the "big tree" and then go left. Really? Turn left at the big tree? We were facing a jungle of big trees! We hoped it would be obvious to us when we saw it but....it wasn't. After a little while we realized we missed our turn and decided to head back all the way to Playa Blanca and take the trail we knew. Only about 10 minutes after we turned around, we saw the Big Tree. We had to search a bit for the "left turn" but ultimately found it & kept on hiking (mostly straight up at that point!). Our first goal was "Pueblito",  where between 460 and 1600 AD approximately 2000 people lived in a village of some 250 structures. Pretty cool. Of course, also in this isolated spot you were able to buy a chilled, ok, at least not *hot*, Coke, Gatorade, etc. I do admire the industriousness of people who will lug a cooler chest and ice to a remote location to sell cold drinks, even if it seems a bit out of place!

A millipede the size of your hand.

Once there, we saw some others who'd come up from Cabo San Juan (where we were meeting the others), telling us it was a really difficult hike. We headed down & it did involve some boulder hopping & climbing but it wasn't really that much harder than what we'd already done. At least on this trail we saw more people; on our previous trail that morning we saw no one. On the trail the day before we saw I think 3-4 people. It's comforting to see people to at least know you're going the right way!! Although we'd been warned of snakes and "tigers", the only animals we really saw were insects--huge millipedes and leaf cutter ants being the most interesting!

The beautiful Tayrona coast

We met up with the others and had lunch at the outdoor restaurant there; then I headed out to the main park entrance while they spent another night in the park. I was ready to leave the "crowded" part of the park and head back "home" to Cartagena!

More photos of Tayrona are here.

 

Tolú tolu?

Lindley & Derval in their bicitaxi

Colombia has the most holidays anywhere; I read that someplace although I don't know if it's really true. It does make it a great place to work if there are a lot of 3-day weekends to enjoy. We have two in June and during the first, a couple of us went to Tolú, a coastal destination about 3 hours by bus south of Cartagena.

It's always quite an adventure getting information on buses, schedules & prices here. Depending on who you ask (even people representing the same company) you can get several different answers. When buying your bus tickets at the terminal, you can even try to negotiate down the cost of the ticket. It makes every trip even more of an adventure!

Tolú is known for its bicitaxis (aka rickshaw, velocab, pedicab) and sure enough, as soon as we got off the bus there were several bicitaxis with their drivers (or perhaps I should say pedalers?) waiting to take us to our hostel. The bicitaxis we were in were quiet and subdued and could only take one or two passengers, compared to the ones we saw later that evening which could hold maybe 8-10 people, had colored lights going, music blasting, and some even had videos. Each bicitaxi was trying to outdo the other!

Lindley & I in the mangroves

But before we got to Saturday night, that afternoon we took a local bus to an area known for its scenic canoe rides through the mangroves. When we got off the bus, we were immediately met by a couple of men who wanted to sell us a canoe ride. We had been told it would probably be about 15,000 pesos/person and the guy offered it to us for 30,000 each. We said no way. He then brought us over to a sign advertising their prices, which had various tours at different prices & he said he'd lower the price and give all the tours combined to us for 80,000 for the 3 of us. We said we were willing to pay 15,000 each at which point he said no way, way too low, look at these official prices which are much higher! We then said 60,000 for all 3 & he immediately grinned and said yes. That grin let us know we caved way too easily & we said so--he just laughed and took us down to where the canoes were and pointed to our guide. Later I realized we shouldn't even have been talking to that guy; we should have been dealing directly with the canoe guide & cutting out the middle man. No matter how much experience you think you have & that next time you'll negotiate better, you're never quite totally on the ball….

In the past, this mangrove had been populated by small alligators. However, according to our guide, back 40-50 years ago one could make a lot of money from catching the gators & selling them for their skins, and so they were hunted out. We didn't see much wildlife on our tour but enjoyed a little trip on the water.

Caught in the act!

The next day we booked a trip to the islands, part of the San Bernardo archipelago which in turn is part of the National Park of the Rosario Islands near Cartagena (see 27 May post!). This trip was much nicer than the Playa Blanca/Rosary Island trip in my opinion--less crowded, less touristy, more peaceful. Not exactly an abandoned beach but one could pretend.

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More Tolu photos can be found here. 

Bocachica...and ghosts??

Last weekend I visited Bocachica with some friends. This is a small village on an island in the Cartagena Bay, just a 15 minute boat ride away. There's a small but nice and uncrowded beach here right next to one of the forts that helped protect Cartagena from the enemy: the French, English, Spanish, and/or pirates, depending on what point of history we're talking about. The San Fernando Fort was built on Terrabomba Island just at the opening of "Boca Chica", or small mouth, through which ships could enter Cartagena Bay from the Caribbean Sea. On a small island on the other side of this passageway, the Battery of San Jose was built. A large, heavy chain was strung between these two structures which was used to impede passage of those they didn't want entering. (There is also "Boca Grande", or big mouth, but that entrance had been blocked at one point accidentally via sunken ships and at another point on purpose in order to more easily protect Cartagena; it is still blocked to large ships.)


This weekend I finally visited the Naval Museum of Cartagena. There is a TON of information there on the history of the Spanish coming and taking over the land; Cartagena as a principal stop on the trade route between the Americas and Spain; Cartagena as a principal slave port for the Americas; and the intricacies of what was going on with the various European crowns, i.e., who was marrying or not marrying whom which caused or stopped the various wars (which also affected what was happening in the New World of course). In addition, they talked about how the fortifications were made, and one of the ingredients in the walls is horse doo doo, how can that be?? And just to add a little spice to the museum visit, it's haunted! I had read about this in the local paper a few months ago and there were displays telling about the different paranormal visitors: there's a ghost who often pushes people down the stairs, a couple who roam the upstairs balcony, a headless pirate who's been seen at the helm of one of the ships, and more. I didn't sense any of them during my visit, but perhaps I should go back at night..... :)

More photos from Bocachica can be seen here.