Sorry it’s been a while since the last post we’ve been in some more rural areas recently and have had either no internet or its been very patchy.
So we arrived in Taganga, a small little fishing village, on Wednesday the 29th. It was pretty and had hardly any non-Colombian tourists, we spent the day walking around the small village as we waited for Grace to do her scuba dive, apparently Taganga can be quite dangerous and that’s why there are so few tourists but we found everyone friendly and helpful and even followed some suggestions to visit a nicer beach a 20min coastal walk away. After Grace finished her dive she spoke to her instructor who suggested she get her advanced diving certificate before she dives in the Galapagos Islands as she would be able to do much more interesting dives there, after asking if it was okay with us she agreed to another 2 days diving and training for her advanced open water license. The rest of us (me and the two girls we’ve been traveling Colombia with, Alexa and Laura) spent the two days on the beach snorkeling and going for walks.
Alexa and Laura had heard about a really cool hostel on the middle of nowhere that was supposed to be amazing to stay at and stunningly beautiful so we decided to head there as they were also having a big party over the weekend. It was a bit of a trek to the hostel (El Rio hostel) but once we got there it was amazing, it was beautiful and set right next to a river, there were lots of communal areas and everyone’s meals were served on communal benches and there was no internet so it was super social and we met lots of people.
On Saturday night they had a party with djs flown in from Europe, although it was mostly techno music which I’m not a fan of it was still lots of fun and ended up going on until 9am the next morning. We spent most of Tuesday hung over with a big group of us sat in the shade, although it was beautiful at El Rio, like most of the North West coast it’s so humid! Which was not appreciated while hungover. On Sunday evening we just had a chilled night sat around chatting.
Monday we went on a lazy river tour, it was so cool we spent an hour or so trekking up the side of the river, it was actually a really nice walk except for the fact we did it barefoot and holding a massive rubber ring. We then sat in the rings and floated back downstream, stopping at various points along the way to jump off rocks and swing in on rope swings. The experience was also made 10x more fun as the hostel dogs decided to follow us on the trekk and then swim down with us. I don’t have any photos of this as I’m not rich enough to own a waterproof phone and someone (looking at you Grace) broke my waterproof camera, but here’s a photo of the dogs on my pillow, which I was not amused by but everyone else was! Update – here are some photos someone with a GoPro took.
On Tuesday we went to Tyrona National park and I got to feel like a wilderness explorer. We decided to stay overnight at the campsite furthest from the entrance, which meant a 3 hour hike across several types of terrain, It felt like a training montage from a film, except we did it in 38°C heat, so we looked a lot sweatier than they tend to in the movies. We went through tropical forests, dirt trails, rocky outcrops, beaches and mangroves. It was hard work but a very enjoyable walk, we saw two types of monkeys, a capybara and several huge trails of red ants. We spent the rest of the day on a beautiful beach, after 8pm the electric goes out and we were so knackered that we went straight to bed. Well to hammock, the only sleeping options there are tents or hammocks on the beach and we couldn’t bare the thought of being in a tent in this humidity. We opted for hammocks, doused ourselves in bug spray and wore long trousers and long sleeve tops and went to bed, safe to say it’s not the most comfortable nights sleep I’ve had and I still managed to wake up with lots of bites but it wasn’t awful, l a dip in the sea the that morning made it worth it.
About 10am we made our way back, on a not so great night sleep it seemed a lot harder, by the time we reached the entrance we were completely soaked through with sweat and looking thoroughly knackered, the poor people entering the park seemed to reconsider their hiking plans a bit when they saw the state of us. But we made it in good time and moved on to a hostel by the sea. I think we’re going to spend our last few free days in Colombia here before we make our way to Bogota to catch our flights out of here.
As always I’ll keep you updated (internet permitting).
Lots of love,
Alice x