Tayrona National Park

 

Here was the place that helped me realize just how small the world is. There were many people at this park who I had met prior in my travels. The most craziest being a couple from France who I met in Argentina 4 months ago. There was, Jenny, from Germany, who I was traveling with for a bit in southern Ecuador. Two Argentinian girls that I met in Medellin were on the shuttle to the park. They were with another guy, James (from China). With them, I spent most of my time at the park.

I was so honored to be with James when he saw his first firefly/lightning bug in his entire life. The response could be comparable to a 5 year olds reaction on Christmas morning or someone seeing snow for the first time in their life.

The topic came up various times throughout the night, and he found he wasn't the only one to be awed by these creatures. Everyone from various parts of the world were so excited about this insect, we all even learned how to say "firefly" in 5 different languages.

The park costs about $19  to get in, or $4 if you are a student (why on earth did I ever get rid of my student ID?) The park offers a variety of flora and fauna because of the two ecosystems (mountain & sea). During the 4 days, we saw monkeys (titi & howler), blue crabs, beautiful birds and not to mention all the marine life. We paid about 6 dollars for the hour to snorkel in the area La Piscina, which vale la pena, we saw some pretty amazing marine life (despite the strong current) - turtles,  stingrays, beautiful colored fish and coral.

the camping area at Cabo San Juan

We slept in hammocks for 5 dollars a night, which I guess helped them justify overpricing their food. The cheapest item on any menu was the spaghetti (basically just a handful of it and not even good) for 6-7 dollars. I'm glad I wasn't the only one wanting to take the cheap route on this one. So here it is, you know you are a poor backpacker when:

the hammock area where we slept

1. You spend hours cooking from scratch - survival cooking (finding dry firewood, building a fire, and ATTEMPTING to start the fire, and waiting for hours for our food to cook over a somewhat lit fire, due to the somewhat wet firewood.
2. You pick fruits from the tree or from the ground to eat (and even consider selling.)
3. You wait over an hour to boil water for your morning coffee because you don't want to pay for a coffee.
4. You drink water from the tap (even after the locals warned us not to.)

on the beach with Ceci and Eugenia from Argentina.
 This part of the beach you are not allowed to swim in,
 because over a 100 people drowned here.

This place has been the highlite of Colombia so far. We ended up staying for 4 days, which was enough. It was nice to get out of my swimming suit, take a nice shower, and sleep in a bed. I plan on staying around Taganga for another 3 days to get my scuba diving certification. Here is one of the cheapest places in the world to get certified, and it will sure come in handy if I move to Southeast Asia :)