If you want a shorter summary about the costs and so forth head to the end.
We booked a private shuttle from Cartagena to Santa Marta for 42,000 COP with Mar sol. Definitely worth the extra pennies. It offers door to door service and took just about 4 hrs in total.
We didn’t see much in Santa Marta as we arrived late in the afternoon and had to sort out our supplies as we planned on spending 3 nights in Tyrona National Park.
We checked into La Guaca hostel. A nice hostel with a small pool, clean rooms but no air-conditioning (a must have for this area).
We set out to buy 3 days worth of food to take into the park. We opted to settle for oats and granola for breakfast with some fruit.
Lunches we bought wraps and tuna with onion, capsicum and spinach for fillings.
Dinner we decided on 2 minute noodles with veggies and a teriyaki sauce. We also decided to carry our own water about 12 litres for the 3 of us.
As we had heard that the park fills up very quickly and you risk the chance of missing out on scoring a hammock we left Santa Marta at 7am. We caught a taxi to the bus station for 5,000 pesos before jumping on a local bus for about 40mins and 6,000 pesos p/p. After arriving just after 7:30 we were told the park doesn’t open till 8, so we grabbed a smoothie from across the road and the park officials put on the mandatory video about Tayrona national park that goes for about 5 mins.
After getting out tickets we went and got our bags searched by the security for drugs and alcohol which are forbidden in the park. Keep an eye on these guys. We met a couple who had 100,000 pesos swiped from his wallet while they were conducting the search. They offered to take pictures of him in their police hats and whilst doing so took the money.
There is a van that will take you from the entrance to the trail for 3,000 pesos each, it saves an hour and a half walk along the road.
The trail itself is quite easy, the start of it is mainly a boardwalk and we were lucky enough that the rest was quite dry. It took us about 2 and a half hours. You can hire a horse to take you in instead of walking but the walk is quite scenic and not really that difficult.
We arrived at about 10:30 and soon realised it doesn’t matter how early your arrive as you cannot check in till 2pm. No exceptions. If you bring your own tent you can just go set up and pay later but if you want to sleep in a hammock you have to wait until 2pm to reserve your spot.
There are 2 hammock areas. One is down with all the campers under a big hut where there are apparently a lot of bugs and can get quite hot. The other option is to go for the hammocks on the hill over the water. There are about 16 spots but the breeze is great, view is amazing and there are no bugs bothering you. These spots cost 25,000 p/p as opposed to 20,000 down below.
Because we bought a lot of food in and went and asked at the kitchen if we could keep some stuff in the fridge. The kitchen staff were not so happy about it, but let us keep some food in there anyway. I wouldn’t count on it though!
So we settled in for the day at the beach, did some snorkelling and just lazed around waiting to go and check in.
We went over at 1:30pm and waited at the desk until 2pm. Apparently the line to check in becomes quite busy close to 2pm, so if your set on the hammocks over the water, I would recommend lining up a little earlier.
What we didn’t count on was a giant storm hitting that night. After anxiously trying to bag a hammock over the water all day, we ended up sleeping on the floor behind a wall to shelter from the rain. There is very little shelter up at the top hammocks and the floor flooded and both our hammocks and us got soaked. The river flooded spilling over into the ocean making the snorkelling the following day about as good as the amazon.
So after a sleepless, uncomfortable night we just relaxed by the beach and soaked up the sun. A lot of people took off the next day, but we opted to stay another night determined to get a night in the hammock. The second night was much better, it gets a bit cold so we recommend taking a sleeping bag or sheet.
We decided to head out the following day instead of spend another night like originally planned. The walk back was a bit different to that of the walk in. A few sections of the path were quite wet and muddy and you can definitely count on getting wet if there has been a heavy down poor the night before. Some friends of ours that walked in after the night of the storm had knee deep water they had to wade though.
We decided to head to Palomino, so jumped on a rickety old local bus for 5,000 pesos p/p. Palomino is a quiet little beach town, with not much to do but relax by the beach.
All in all the Tyrona National Park is beautiful and the beaches before the storm were very nice. If you have seen amazing beaches before in the Bahamas or come from a place like Australia then the beach may seem pretty average and not live up to the hype everyone makes it out to be, but it is worth a visit for a night or two……. Just be sure to check the weather forecast before heading out there.
OUR TRIP IN 10 POINTS
1. PARK DOESN’T OPEN TILL 8.
2. GET THERE BEFORE 1:30 IF YOU WANT A HAMMOCK ON THE HILL.
3. CHECK THE WEATHER BEFORE HEADING IN.
4. TAKE MOSQUITO SPRAY
5. NO COOKING FACILITIES AT SAN JUAN AND NO FRIDGE
6. ONE RESTAURANT WHERE EVERYONE EATS
7. BREAKFAST 6,000-10,000. LUNCH/DINNER 15,000-25,000. BEERS 4,000.
8. NO POTABLE DRINKING WATER THAT WE SAW. (You can buy small bottles from the kiosk)
9. LOTS OF BUGS IN THE HAMMOCKS NEAR THE TENTS
10. CAN GET VERY HOT DURING THE DAY, BUT A BIT COLD A NIGHT SO TAKE A BLANKET IF YOUR GOING TO SLEEP IN THE HAMMOCKS
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