In the Jungle

Wednesday 19 May
Taganga – Tayrona National Park

We had decided to go to Tayrona National Park. It is a jungle further up the Caribbean coast to the west, famed for its beauty and untouched nature. It also contains the Ciudad Perdida – the “Lost City” – which, thankfully, has since been found, otherwise it wouldn’t be much of a tourist attraction. However it takes six days to trek to the lost city and none of us had the time available for that. So we decided to go to the jungle for one night.

We arranged transport with some random local and ate breakfast. We came back to find our man, only to discover that he had decided to take some other people off somewhere to do something else. Presumably there was more money in it for him. We managed to find alternative transport from a man with a boat who took us along the coast. It took a while – a couple of hours I think – and the ride was pretty bumpy with the people at the front getting a good washing.

We arrived at the beach and it looked like paradise. All there was, was sea, sand, palm trees and jungle. There was one hut on a rock that held some hammocks. Immediately this beach was in the running for most awesome beach in the world. My previous two contenders were Paradise beach in Uluwatu, Bali, Indonesia, and Long Beach, Perhentian Islands, Malaysia. Goa gets an honourable mention for Palolem and Arambol beaches. But none of them could beat this place for lack of visible shoreline habitation.

As soon as we landed a woman came and made us pay our national park entry fee. We then set off and found the place where they deal with all the hammocks and reserved ours. It turns out that we should have received a wristband when we paid the entrance fee but that didn’t happen. We explained the situation to the rather over-dressed park warden (think full-on Bavarian military in green with additional gold ropey things from the shoulder) and he seemed to understand, though it probably helped that a group of aggressive chavs that were in the same situation caused a lot of problems for themselves by getting shouty and took the heat away from us.

Back from the shore and in a large clearing in the jungle there was a large area that consisted of a camping ground, a large hut with loads of hammocks, a basic restaurant and a shop selling snacks and booze. That was all there was, so we got busy and jumped in the sea. We spent the afternoon on the beach, swimming in the Caribbean and sunbathing.

After sunset we had drinks and dinner in the restaurant, playing cards and music with each other. La Lambadour dressed up as a Portuguese waiter, which was the first and last time he wore more than underpants for the entire time I knew him.

Eventually we made it back to the hammocks as the last – and probably the drunkest – people to go to bed. We may have annoyed some people.