Of Santa Marta's Travel Destinations, the Brilliant Tayrona Park is Near the Top.

When you are in Santa Marta, one of the top travel destinations on your list should be Tayrona Park. This park is right up there with the great ones, there are around 20 different beaches, places to camp, and a few places where you can have a meal and a drink. This is a fine example of how things used to be in many parts of the world. Can you imagine what it would be like if there was a 20 story monstrosity built 10 feet from the beach? There is nothing more beautiful in nature than nature itself and is in abundance here.

Physical Map of Tayrona

A few things about Tayrona Park.

It's a national park.
No development will be allowed.
There is no development now.
A great place for birdwatching or to see animals and insects, always an abundance of wildlife of course (this is Colombia).
Many beautiful small beaches.
The water is warm.
There are no crowds.
The jungles come right to the beach

Entrance to Tayrona

What I like is Tayrona is so natural, if you like to spend time alone this is the place. There are miles of isolated beaches and trails that can be walked.

When you take a tour at the park you tend to intermingle with Colombians as this is a major stop for vacations and I'm sure you will find like I have that they're a fun and friendly group to be with, for some reason, the sun and the heat makes everyone want to party.

Beach Retirement

There is an old man living in this building, he was 75-80 years old, I was told he was the only person allowed to live in the park. Sure the house was put together with what he could find but he seemed happy and gave us all a drink of panela, a sweet drink made of a dirivative juice of the sugarcane. He lived not more than 10 feet from the sea enjoying the 2800 hours of sunshine a year and warm Caribbean waters to have a bath in, the older I get the more I want to get rid of everything and live like the old man.

Lunch at TayronaThis particular area is the most important travel destination of all, this is where you get food, beer or drinks, we had lunch at this location earlier, always great either in the park or or in the many restaurants around Santa Marta. Even in the park lunch was not expensive and to make matters even better I could identify what I was eating not some formula made of 80% sugar and the rest mystery meat byproducts, but hey, that's just me my preference are for real over experimental. In the end you just can't beat real food and real cheap beer on a hot summers (everyday at Tayrona) day.

Siete Olas Beach

This is a beautiful beach that has apparently taken many lives with it's very strong undercurrents.

boulders-on-the-beach

This is the kind of place that you could just stay and not leave, the hardest part would be getting used to true freedom, getting up in the morning and just hang out all day.I read that in the past, to meet your bare minimum of expenses a person had to work 3 hours a day so much of the day was telling stories and doing just what you wanted to. I think I could do that here.

The weather in these photos reflects the weather at this location most of the year at about 82˚F (28˚C).

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