Taganga and Tayrona

I have said that Taganga is my favorite place in Colombia, now a I year later, I am back to Taganga again, and the town have not lost any of its charm for me. It is a chilled out place, where one can relax, have a freshly squeezed juices and fruit salads made out of a dozen different fruits. Or have delicious sea food while setting next to the beach watching the beautiful sunset. The place is quite popular with Israelis and I think half of the tourist population was from Israel, most of them staying at Casablanca. This time I stayed at Techos Azules (blue roofs), it is still close to the beach, and the owners are quite friendly people, who will go out of their way to take care of the hostel tenants.

After a couple of days relaxing in Taganga, I went for some more relaxing at the Tayrona national park. I visited the park during my previous trip, but I was short on time, and I only spent one day there, which is not enough to really appreciate the place. So this time I made sure I had more time to spend there. The park consists of sand beaches, lined with palm trees, very beautiful, but then I had quite high expectation of the place. I expected crystal clear water, like in those photos of perfect Caribbean beaches often advertised. But the water was not crystal clear, there is a bit too turbulent for that; constant currents and surf stir up things too much. Any expectations I had of a wild place with hardly any sole around were also quickly dissipated; there were probably a 150 people staying at El Cabo, the best beach to stay at in Tayrona.

So it was not the perfect desolate Caribbean beach I imagined, but once I settled into the rhythm of the place and allowed my self to be absorbed by the relaxing atmosphere, I started to enjoy the place. I met a few interesting people, some of them I had met earlier during my traveling in Colombia, others I did not know before. Felix is a student from Austria, who studies translation and speaks five languages. He used to belong to a fanatic Christian group for five years. But then he started to question his faith, went on to read all the holly books of the major religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism), and became skeptical of religions. He told me stories about religious fanatism that before, I could not believe existed in a modern country like Austria. Iljits is a young Dutch guy, who traveled around the Middle East, and now he is traveling around Colombia. In Cali he was approached by a woman in the modeling business and offered him to start a modeling career in Colombia, she said they could use a guy with a different looks around here, as there are not much blond people around.

There is not much to do in such a desolate place; go to the beach for swim, lie on the beach and read a book, and take many pictures; the scenery is amazing, and I took quite a few pictures. Once the beach becomes boring, then it is just time to go to the next beach, and repeat the same activities. After a few days though, I started to miss civilization. There is a generator at the camp site, but it is only used to light up the place at night; there is no plug to connect my laptop, I anticipated and did not bring my laptop with me anyway. It was a shame because I had a lot of time to right, and what would be a perfect place to do it than a lovely relaxed beach. I am trying to finish my short story which I started in Bogotá. I am almost done with the second revision. There are still a few more things that need tightening, but a few days of work should wrap it up. I guess I could have printed out the latest revision, and used my time there to edit it, something to consider for the next time.

At El Cabo, there are two types of beds: hammocks or tents. Since I did not have a tent, I stayed in a hammock. The place was so full, that they had no more space to tie hammocks anymore, and had to send back people to the first beach. Later I realized it was Valentine day; a lot of young couples were there to spend a couple of romantic days on the beach. I can’t think of many places that would be better than Tayrona, for a romantic Valentine day vacation.

After three days, I felt I was running out of things to do in Tayrona, and I started to miss civilization. Anyway my friends, Troy and Shane were arriving to Barranquilla for the Carnival, and I decided to join them one day earlier than I planned.