Parque Tayrona… a little work is required for a big payoff

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona in Colombia was quite possibly the most highly anticipated stop of my entire South American adventure. I think I may have even showed a photo of Tayrona to my Chi crew before I left… as in, “Holy shit!!! This is what I get to see!!!”. It’s a national park located on the northern Caribbean coast of Colombia about 5hrs drive E of Cartagena. It’s run by local Colombian tribes who wisely charge admission to visit their paradise. It’s a lush green mountainous region whose jungles just explode onto the coast in these amazing rock formations & mesmerizing beaches. But you gotta work for it. The deal is you hike through the jungle, up & down foothills from beach to beach – I think there’s upwards of 7-8 beaches accessible from the main El Zaino entrance although a few are deemed unswimmable & even come with warning signs indicating “hundreds+ have died” trying. So you feel as if you’ve earned this massive reward by the time you reach the beaches & witness the views.
They tried to make it difficult for me to visit. The tribes must grow weary of the visiting tourists (although they do limit visitors daily so you must get an early start) & every so often they suddenly decide to close up shop for a month to purify the land. They announced in December they were closing as of Jan 27 but I didn’t get word until just as I was leaving so I had to rework my trip to accommodate & thank goodness I did, as I do believe this may be my single favorite travel day EVER. The sailing trip from El Nido to Coron in the Philippines was my fave trip-within-a-trip but I think this was my fave single day. I’m not sure my photos do the views justice & they certainly don’t capture the feeling of joy once you’ve completed the hike & get to enjoy it… before of course you do the hike again on return. I just love it when shit works out.
A few things I learned based on my pre-hike research & on-the-hike experience:

Buy your ticket in advance. The park’s website to do this is a joke & doesn’t work. I asked the manager of the casa I was staying at to buy one in my name & he obliged. This assures you a ticket & the privilege of avoiding a massive line to get tickets the day of & given the park limits daily visitors, on busy days, I’ve read the park stops entrants by 10am, so travelers have been known to wait in line beginning at 4am. That’s just not for me. The fact the park was closing made this that much more important, although I’d do it again visiting on a normal day. A little advanced planning goes a long way.

Hire a taxi to drop you & pick you up in accordance w park hours (8am-5pm). There are public buses you can take to the entrance of the park. What the park doesn’t advertise is the 5km walk to the point at which the jungle hikes begin. From that point, it’s a 3-hr minimum hike past all the beaches. Adding on a 5km walk? No thanks. Thankfully I found this advice online before I went.

Stay offsite. There’s a couple places you can camp in the park. One at the “furthest beach” & biggest draw, Cabo San Juan de Guia, & the other at one of the closest, Arrecifes. I previously read about these options… bring your own tent (yeah right, even if I owned one, it’s NOT making the backpack cut), rent a tent or rent a hammock. Let’s just say, by staying overnight, you’re not blazing a new trail. It’s like tent city. A sea of tiny little tents placed nearly on top of one another in the beating hot sun. The hammock situation didn’t appear much better although you at least had some sort of structure as a cover. If you want to really treat yourself, Tayrona has these 14 ecohabs (i.e. somewhat fancy thatched huts) perched on the hillside; only thing is, they are at the start of the hike & located on an unswimmable beach. So for >US$200 more per night over what I paid for my baller digs (see next post), you haven’t cut into your hike at all. Offsite there is a whole range of options and besides, one doesn’t need any more hot equatorial sun than a full-day hike provides. Believe me, it’s plenty.

Bring real hiking boots. Some fools were hiking in flip flops & when that didn’t work, they resorted to bare feet. I’m not sure if those people are stubborn, foolish or lazy & failed to do the research, but the hike is not for pansies as it requires some scrambling up & down boulders & obstacle courses to avoid massive mud baths, especially given the torrential downpours the night before. I was happy I had my hiking boots & put them to good use. Sure, at times you hike through sand & across mini rivers but I’d just kick off my boots & walk barefoot til I needed to don them again. 90% of people came similarly prepared so the 10% sure did stick out.

Take time to enjoy the hike. Life is a journey not a destination. All of the travel guides rave about the “furthest beach” Cabo & it’s photos justifably serve as the parque’s advertisements so you can imagine its popularity. But it’s 3 hours before you reach the beach & along the way, you pass 4 other breathtaking beaches & views. Although I think many people missed those. I’d take the long way, stopping to find the perfect views & surveying each beach; while most others seemed to just beeline straight for Cabo, not pausing for a second to enjoy the journey. When I arrived at the exalted Cabo, I realized why. While the other beaches were scantly crowded, this one was teeming with people. Yes, it was drop dead gorgeous & I went a little overboard w the photos (a couple different times 3hrs apart bc, you know, the sun changes), but my goodness, finding a little square piece of sand to plop down upon seemed like a daunting & unwelcome task. After round 1 of photos, I spied a path on the further end. I recalled the travel books saying there was one beach after Cabo but it was a nude beach (gasp). Hell, at this point, I was excited for the nudes in order to escape the Cabo frenzy. So I continued on & thankfully so bc there were 2 further beaches that were hardly touched by tourists save for hippies hiding out & taking pot naps. Perhaps the travel books’ mention of the nude beach scared folks off. Regardless, I found a happy isolated spot to chill & rest before my 3hr hike back (& round 2 of pics at Cabo).
If anyone is inspired by this post & wants to visit in the next 5 months, not only can I help you with planning the details, but I’m also happy to re-route my trip & do it all over again to play tour guide. That’s just how incredible it is.