Birthday on the beach: Tayrona national park

After spending some time at the Dreamer hostel in Santa Marta we decided to check out the beaches at Tayrona national park, which are meant to be stunning.

First off we headed on a day trip to Bahia Concha - which was the nearest beach to Santa Marta that is in the park. Here you don't need to pay the national park entrance fee of 38,000 COP - it's just a mere 5,000 COP.

If you walk down to the very end of the beach you can avoid the touts with their plastic chairs, hammocks and sunshades and find some shade under a tree.

Cat demonstrating that the tree was actually a great sand free seat!

The water was lovely and clear and refreshing to swim in. Eventually one of the boys from down the beach made it up to us to offer beer and drinks and a special price for the fish lunch (we're not allowed to tell anyone - shhh!)

Whilst the beach was pretty it wasn't stunning. So we headed for the main part of the park for an overnight stay. From Santa Marta we caught the local bus up there - really easy, we got to the bus stop and one came along 2 minutes later - for 6,000 COP we were dropped off at the Zainu main entrance where we had to pay our 38,000 fee and collect our wrist bands.

A shuttle bus took us the 5k to the main car park for 2,000 COP and then we had a nice 2 hour walk to our beach of choice - El Cabo San Juan. You can get to a beach quicker than this - however the first ones you come across you can't swim at - we saw signs warning that over a 100 people had died trying to swim on these beaches - the undertow is notorious.

So we decided to continue walking past the first campsites and restaurants to Cabo. This was a wide decision as it was absolutely stunning!

Picture credit to Cat!

You can stay in the hut on the rocks - they have hammocks and private rooms... We ended up in a tent though as all the hammocks were full.

This beach was one we couldn't afford - close to the entrance with Eco huts - it's the five star equivalent!

On the walk through the national park we saw lots of wildlife - from leaf cutter ants with their super highways through the forest to monkeys in the trees and some random oversized rodent thing...

Leaf cutter ants - they have cleared the pathway through the forest to make bringing back the leaves easier - very industrious!

Although the park is famous for having howler monkeys these seemed quiet and so I think they are more likely to be tamarins.

We were super excited to be able to swim in the sea off of Cabo - however the waves were still quiet large and scoured the beaches relentlessly.

The combination of granite bolders, palm trees and crystal clear turquoise waters all jibed perfectly with the Carribean islands I had been on in the BVI and Antigua - yay proper Carribean!

Slightly overcast in the morning - it soon brightened up though.

My little mermaid pose on the rocks

Waves splashing the offshore rocks

Our tent 

View of the football pitch from our tent - the beach is just behind the shrubbery

Whilst we had to pay 25,000 for the privilege of a tent space, the hammocks were about 20,000, I thought the food and drink at the restaurant area was decently priced from 10,000 for pasta up to 25,000 for fish. However I would recommend taking lots of cash with you and to bring water if you can carry it for the 2 hour hike.

View from the rocks back over to the beach

Can you spot the iguana?

Here he is!

Birthday breakfast beers on the beach!

Sunset was pretty spectacular too

Credit to Cat's iPhone for capturing this!

I would definitely recommend going to Tayrona and staying min one night - make it two and really relax into the beach life and make the most of that 38,000 COP fee!