Holy Wildlife! A Day and Night in Tayrona National Park

As promised, there are photos of monkeys in this post. Like oh-my-gosh-real-life-in-the-wild-monkeys!

Aside from traveling to Santa Marta, Colombia to get my dive certification, I wanted to visit this part of the coast for the beaches, specifically those in Tayrona National Park, a huge protected area that encompasses hills, mountains, beaches, and forests full of wildlife on the Caribbean Sea, not to mention some amazing coral reefs. Playa Blanca was great and all, but I was ready to see some real nature!

Did you know that the Sierra Nevada in this part of Colombia is the highest coastal mountain range in the world? I did not. But as you round tight curves in the road, whether by bus or motorbike (more on that later), you’ll have beaches on one side and mountains directly on the other. It’s crazy, but it makes for some awesome landscapes.

On Columbus Day, I headed to Tayrona from Santa Marta to hang out with some new British friends I’d met in Cartagena. Of course, staying at a different hostel than them, I got ready a little too slow and told them we’d meet up on the beach. I figured finding my way there solo couldn’t be that hard. And really it wasn’t…

Yeahhh this is what I’d been waiting for…

From Santa Marta, I took the public collectivo for 6,000 COP (about $2 USD) that leaves from the city mercado on Calle 11. The sign in the bus window says “Tayrona.”

Once you get in the general vicinity of these collectivos, don’t worry if you’re feeling confused – some guy will approach you and ask you if you’re going to Tayrona and usher you onto the bus. I know this because it happened to me about four times. Including just after I’d returned from the park all sweaty and sandy. No I do not want to go directly back there thanks! The buses leave pretty regularly and/or once they fill up.

After arriving and watching the park’s (possibly mandatory) video on conservation and wildlife, we were given a little lecture on all of the beaches and accommodation options within the park before we were allowed to purchase our entrance tickets.

You are now entering the jungle. Yes, the actual jungle.

At 39,500 COP (about $13.50 USD) the fee to enter the park for foreigners is a little steep. This makes it worthwhile to spend the night and get your money’s worth. And the hike through the park to the beaches is about two hours long, so yeah, stay the night. Though lots of people do it as a day trip, I wouldn’t want to make that trek twice in one day.

Did I mention it’s really hot too?

The park worker at the entrance explained to everyone that the popular beach and campground we had our eyes on, El Cabo de San Juan, was “totalmente llena” or totally full. I recognized these words but decided I’d ask a girl from the collectivo what she thought we should do. Turns out she was from Bogota and had been to Tayrona before. She confirmed my suspicions about the campground and led me to a little hut at the entrance where we could purchase hammocks for the night at an alternate campsite called Bukaru for $15,000 COP (about $5 USD). The lady selling these hammocks explained that it was located pretty close to El Cabo anyway.

Whatever, at least we had a place to sleep. (Because who wants to hike two hours to the beach and I don’t know, sleep in the sand with the mosquitoes?)

So we began our trek together and thus began another Spanish hazing session for Rachel. No, I swear I love it. I get laughed at a lot, but you know, that’s good for me. Builds character.

My new friend and hiking companion, Luisa, had a much bigger backpack than me and I felt for her; I’d only brought only my little daypack. From what I’d read about Tayrona, I imagined just a two hour “walk” into the beaches.

Nah, it was really more of a hike. From wooden boardwalk-like paths and manmade steps with handrails, to dirt and mud paths, boulders, and sand, it was quite a diverse terrain. I’m so glad I wore my running shoes. I met another friend from Cartagena along the trail who was really struggling in her sandals. (But seriously, how do you not research that shit?)

Walking in the sand is by far the worst part.

But the hike in was SO worth it! We saw tons of animals…

Like leaf-cutter ants. (Okay, some were insects, not animals.) We joked that the ants must be carrying these leaves to alert us to their presence so that we could see them crossing the trail and not step on them. Because what the heck could they be doing with these tiny pieces of leaves? (No really, what are they doing with them? Someone feel free to educate me in the comments below.)

And lots of lizards. They can be a little scary when you don’t know what the hell is making all that noise in the leaves.

And MONKEYS!!! What?! Ahhhh!

Absolutely shocked, I turned to Luisa and asked her in a tone that was probably a little too accusatory – in broken, flustered Spanish, of course – if she had any idea there’d be monkeys here! As in, I felt like somebody should have warned me! She had been here before.

Nope, she was just as surprised as I was!

We stayed and took pictures until one of them looked at us and showed his teeth a little too much for my liking. Scared of both rabies and having poop thrown at me, we moved along.

We also saw several capybara, huge toads, massive land crabs, bats, and red squirrels before it was all over with. My friends even saw a sloth on the way in. It was nuts!

We were teased with views of the sea as we sweatily made our way deeper into the park.

We passed through Arrecifes, a campground and un-swimmable beach en route to our destination.

Yeah, they make it pretty clear you can’t swim here.

And then things started looking all Jurassic Park like…

Oh yeah, we passed some Australians who said they saw a crocodile in the water around here. Like said it all casually, like it was normal! Oh, Australians…

Ah, another beach! False alarm, this one is called Piscina. Swimmable, but not the beach we were looking for. Gotta keep trekking.

But damn nice looking anyway.

Back into the trees…

You know you’re almost at El Cabo when you the horses. You can pay to ride them in or out of the park – they take an alternate route. At this point, I was considering riding one out the next morning.

Hooray! Civilization, kinda.

You can rent tents or hammocks at El Cabo. But what surprised us upon entering? There were PLENTY of hammocks left! The jerks at the front had lied to us. (To be fair, mayyybe they’d meant that the night before the holiday it had been totally full, but I doubt it.)

I was tempted to just say screw it and write off the 15,000 pesos I’d already paid for a hammock as a loss. But it turned out that my British friends had done the same thing as us and purchased hammocks at Bukaru after hearing El Cabo was full. Needless to say, we were all pretty annoyed that we’d been tricked! And by authority figures no less. I hate that.

Yep, coulda spent the night here.

For a little extra, you can also rent hammocks in the little mirador up there on the rocks. We climbed up for a great jealousy-inducing view of the beach and cursed everything.

To be fair, a friend of mine told me that while staying in a hammock here is tempting, it also gets very cold and damp at night. Hearing this was a little consolation, but man it still looked so cool.

But it wasn’t all bad. We hung out here for most of the day, swam, had a beer, and ate lunch – a decent plate of shrimp, rice, salad, and fries for about $25,000 COP ($8.50 USD). I would not recommend the fish. It didn’t look so good.

And there are free lockers at El Cabo so you can bring a lock for your things and get in the water without worrying about your stuff.

You’re not allowed to bring booze in, but you can bring water and snacks that will most certainly be cheaper if bought outside the park. There are other vendors walking around selling ice cream.

The police will search your bags on the way in as well. When they asked where I was from and I responded with “the United States,” they laughed and said, “Ohhh, are there drugs in here then?” Colombian jokes…

There are even arepas on the beach in the high season! Dammit!

We left the beach reluctantly after lathering ourselves in bug spray and headed off to our campsite just before it got dark… but definitely not soon enough. It got very dark very quickly! The bats came out as we headed off down the trail to Bukaru, nearly getting lost and slipping in mud, and being totally freaked out from all the wildlife around us that we couldn’t see. Good thing the only male with us brought his trusty headlamp!

Bukaru as a campsite wasn’t so bad. It was located near Piscina and Arrecifes beaches, the hammocks came with mosquito nets, and there was a bar serving food and drinks until all power was cut off around 9 PM. There were also some pretty bad bathrooms. A rat definitely ran out of one of the stalls when I opened the door, but hey, it’s the jungle! But yeah, I may have screamed…

My surprisingly comfortable, cocoon-like hammock with all my stuff inside.

To pass the time before bed, we played cards (though do you know how difficult it is to think up card games that aren’t drinking games?) and laughed about the differences in British and American words, something that I will never NOT find hilarious. Do you know what they think “fanny” means???

None of us wanted to drink very much, considering the prices and the possibility of having to get up to pee in the middle of the dark, dark creature-filled night.

Then we woke up pretty early and headed to the nearest beach for a morning swim. Who needs showers?

Afterwards we set off around 11 AM to begin our hike back. In hindsight, probably not the best idea to leave at the HOTTEST time of the day.

But this was a pretty good way to start the morning. 

Tayrona was well worth the entry price and while I expected to spend more money than usual on my day in the park, I still came in well under my $50 per day budget. Just seeing all of the animals in the park was half the fun. The beaches are great though nothing crazily spectacular, the trek in is a workout, and the experience itself was really unique, especially with new friends. And oh yeah, I SAW MONKEYS!!!

What do you guys think about hammock sleeping? Do you like the looks of this? Have YOU ever seen monkeys in the wild?!