Santa Marta

Our next stop was Santa Marta, a smaller city in Columbia.  It seemed that the most interesting thing to do there was to visit Tayrona National Park.  To that end we hired a taxi to take us there.  American currency is widely accepted in Columbia but when we arrived and went to pay the entrance fee they refused to take US dollars. The taxi driver then went back to a small town we had passed through to exchange some dollars at a restaurant. The road to the park was terrible having suffered badly during the rainy season and the car scraped bottom constantly.  We were sure he would loose a muffler or worse yet an oil plug. Upon arriving at the park we were instructed to take a hike that would lead us in a circle.

The hike started off thorough the bush on a muddy trail.  I took my shoes off and braved it barefoot rather than ruin them.

In about 10 minutes we came to a very rugged beach with strong surf.

At one point we had to ford a small stream, we got wet but it was fun.  I felt like Indiana Jones.

From there it was about a 20 min walk to a small quaint hotel consisting of huts with thatched roofs.  There was a rather private public beach there and had we known we could have taken our suits and gone for a swim.

The road from there took us back to the park entrance.  There were some mules in a corral with packs on.  Upon inquiring I discovered that they were there to take people over to another beach about a one hour ride away.  That sounded like fun.  Next time I would do it differently.

On the way back we volunteered to walk over the worst spots in the road to save on his car.

We were pushing off early so had to be back by 5:30.  The evening show was an acrobat juggler, he was excellent. Among other things he placed a wine bottle on a small round table, put a small squishy ball on the top and then stood on his head and proceeded to twirl two rings on each arm in a boat that was rocking...top that!