The Trek to Tayrona

We had an exciting speedboat ride from Isla Grande back to Cartagena on Saturday afternoon; it was extremely fast and felt like a roller coaster ride! Zack even lost his hat to the sea as it blew off as soon as the driver accelerated. We eventually found our SUV driver at the pier and began a very long ride to our next place, a lovely location across the street from Tayrona National Park. 

SUVs are smaller in Colombia, and though our suitcases fit in the trunk, the kids and I were stuffed in the backseat with our backpacks for the six hour drive. Watching Colombia out the window made the time pass fairly quickly, as there was plenty to see. We went through bigger towns like Baranquilla, where the whole city seemed to be out for the evening enjoying the Christmas decorations, food, and music. But there were several smaller towns too, where everyone seemed to be sitting outside just hanging out on plastic chairs. There were always places with food or blasting music. There were some traffic jams, and we even got stopped at one point because of a protest, which in this case was just several people standing in a line across the street. Our driver paid a local guy to show us the way through the side streets to get around it all in a few minutes. Driving in this part of Colombia is similar to what we experienced in some of our Southeast Asian travels…lanes are optional, passing is always occurring, motorcycles are everywhere, and you hope for the best and feel lucky you don’t die on every trip! We finally arrived in Tayrona at around 10pm and went straight to bed.

The next day, we enjoyed relaxing at our place, Arca Tayrona Restaurante & Hostal. From our balcony, we saw toucans in the morning! The mountain and jungle view was lovely. Later in the afternoon, Jonas spotted a monkey climbing on the balconies, and we enjoyed watching its antics for awhile. We cooled off in the pool and explored the river behind our place. It was a slow-paced day after our busy travel day on Saturday!