Tayrona National Park is one of Colombia’s many beautiful national parks, located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the Santa Marta district. The 150km2 park boasts both beautiful beaches and rainforest and is home to the Kogui indigenous people.
There are two main entrances into the park on the west and east sides named Calabazo and El Zaino respectively. We chose to enter the park at the Calabazo entrance and hike from west to east, as we read that we would encounter fewer people this way. For the first half of the day we encountered less than 10 other people, which was great as it really allowed us to enjoy the sounds of nature. An added bonus of doing the hike in this direction is that the hike starts by ascending a moderately steep mountain and is followed by descending the other side of the mountain which is fairly steep and rocky. If you hike in the other direction you will likely find yourself scrambling up rocks.
Part I 
Part II
The Calabazo entrance is not well marked; it is a dirt road in between shops. The Google Maps coordinates are (11.284788, -74.001731). There are locals offering horse rides into the park at the start of the dirt road which may help you identify it. After a few hundred metres walk you encounter the ticketing office. It cost us 112 COP per person when we visited at the start of March, and this included some sort of unavoidable death and injury insurance.
The hike up towards the archaeological site of Pueblito was fairly straightforward. Pueblito was still inaccessible when we visited. This followed the month-long closure of Tayrona National Park in February 2019. The park usually closes for at least one month per year to allow the Kogui to express their gratitude to Mother Earth and perform rituals. It also gives the ecosystem a break from tourists. In 2020 the park will be closing in February as well as part of June and October.
The highlight of our hike through the forest was probably finding two poison dart frogs! Frogs are Clinton’s favourite animal so finding two of them was pretty exciting. Apart from frogs we mostly encountered birds, although often we weren’t prepared with our camera equipment to take advantage of the situation. After around 3 hours of walking we started the rocky and steep descent down to the shore.
When we finally reached Playa Nudista (the nudist beach), I was the first to jump in for a swim (with my swimsuit on!). I don’t like swimming in cold water, so I’m pleased to say this was swimming temperature. We recommend visiting this beautiful beach just because it has far fewer people than Cabo San Juan and is just as beautiful.
Continuing along the trail you will come across Cabo San Juan Beach. There are a LOT of people here, even in the low season, so be prepared. Amazingly we managed to get a photo of me on a less populated patch of beach. There’s a large rock you can walk up to and look out over the ocean and the beach, and we got some great photos here. There’s also a small swamp with alligators. One of the alligators was quite large and we found it very surprising that some unsuspecting tourists were sunbaking about 10 metres away, with their backs to the alligator!
There is one large restaurant at Cabo San Juan, with expensive prices for Colombian standards. However, the meals are large and arrive fairly swiftly. They give you a number after you pay and call out the number when your meal is ready, so it helps if you confirm how to say your number in Spanish before you sit down.
The beach after Cabo San Juan is called Playa la Piscina and looks more like your average, but still beautiful, beach. In our opinion this was really the last main attraction along the hike. The next three hours we spent hiking back to the El Zaino entrance, along with the hoard loads of other people that had reached Cabo San Juan from El Zaino and returned the same way. This part of the hike was easy, and we managed it in flip-flops without any issues. After seeing this spectacle of people we were definitely glad that we entered via the alternative entrance and got several hours of peaceful hiking to ourselves in the morning.
Once you reach the edge of the park, there is a long road back to the village and we recommend taking the minibus as it is not scenic at all. The minibuses leave when full and are meant to stop running around the time when the park closes. They will cram as many people as possible into these minibuses.
After being dropped at the edge of El Zaino, we then had to catch a public bus back to Calabazo. The buses arrive frequently but are extremely full every time. We decided to cram ourselves in, after which even more people crammed themselves in. Eventually the bus was so full that people were holding onto the doors and hanging half outside the bus as it sped from village to village.
Overall, we had a very exercise packed day at the park. We didn’t have much time to enjoy the beaches, but still managed to see everything we set out to see. There is the option of staying overnight in the park, although you have to be prepared to camp in tents and you will need to pay extra money for a multi-day entrance ticket into the park.
where were you staying at to see the cotton top Tamarin monkey ?
I have sent you an email with the details!