Today is the day we are hiking to the Park, spending a night on a hammock in Playa Brava, and hike out on the next day, a total of 8 hours and 25kms... but everything went wrong
After a great night of sleep, it is time to check out and hike towards Tayrona Park to our final destination of the day, Playa Brava hostel where we have booked 3 hammocks on the beach, can’t wait !
We leave our big backpack to the reception, take 2 liters of water each and we started walking toward the entrance.
Our plan is to walk to the main entrance, purchase the ticket, than head out and take the collective to the other entrance,Calabazo, located 20 minutes away driving. And from there, we will have to hike for 3-4 hours (according the the guides) in order to reach Playa Brava, our hostel. The way is uphill for most of the time and it is the hardest part for us because we have to go over a mountain to reach the beach. Check the maps here under.
After a good night of sleep, it is time to check out and start our hike towards Tayrona Park. After a good breakfast, our big backpacks dropped in the storage and our water filled, we’ve check out and started to walk to the entrance of the park. It is a 15 mins walk.
Our plan is to purchase the entrance tickets over there, head out and take a collectivo to the second entrance, Calabazo which is located 20 mins away by bus. From Calabazo, we will start hiking for 3-4 hours towards Playa Brava beach where we booked 3 hammocks to spend the night. This part of the hike is less touristic because it is mainly uphill. In order to get to the hidden beach we have to go above a mountain and hike down for another hour.
After two and a half hours, we finally reached the beach. It was around 11 am. We went to the reception desk and told them we had a reservation, and it is at the exact moment that everything escalated quickly to a drama.
At the moment when we had to pay, the lady told us that their Card machine was not working, and we could only pay cash ... we had no cash, we have spent everything on the entrance which we did not expect to be that expensive (65000 pesos). VERY IMPORTANT ! before you leave Santa Marta, make sure to withdraw enough money. Only few places accept the card and you will not be able to find an ATM except from SantaMarta or Minagoa, located 1hour and a half from Tayrona park main entrance.
Without any money to pay our reservation, we had no other choice but hike all the way to the main entrance and expect the journey hostel to have 3 beds for us.
From Playa Brava, we had to hike back uphill to a local village, which took us 2 hours, and then hike down to the beach called Cabo San Juan, which took us another hour and a half. From there it was a 3 hours walk to the main entrance. In the overall journey, we were running out of water, had to refill in Cabo San Juan, and it was super expensive ! Then take a quick swim to rest for a bit and hike out for 3 hours.
We finally reached the main entrance around 7pm, after a 8-9 hours hike. Once there we had no other option but to go back to the Hostel we left this morning, and expect them to have three beds available. Luckily, they had two beds available, and I asked for a hammock, where I will spend the night. We also met Arlo, our friend American friend who joined us to party for my birthday later in the week. Actually it was kinda cosy, and I was super tired so I passed out straight away;
