Cartagena
Cartagena is a walled city on the Caribbean Coast. It was an important port for the Spanish when they ruled South America. Consequently it was often attacked. Following Francis Drake's successful attack on the city, Spain began building serious fortifications, a wall all the way around the city (the city is pretty much surrounded by water anyway) and some rather intimidating forts. Although the historic centre remains pretty much unchanged, Cartagena has expanded and modern sky scrapers line the water fronts.
We spent our time wandering round the old town and melting due to the high heat and high humidity, with occasional retreats into our nice air conditioned room. The cheapest way to eat was the 'set menu' which always started with soup. Why would anybody want soup when it's over 30 degrees and 90% humidity?!
From Cartagena we took the bus to Santa Marta, further East on the Caribbean coast. During the drive some enterprising locals took the opportunity of a capitive audience to try to sell Chanel perfume, Calvin Klein belts, and watches. It was like aggressive sales pitch from the Duty Free trolley as the goods were placed on your lap so you could inspect them. We decided to base ourselves in Taganga, a small fishing village/beach resort, nestled in the hills just a few kilometres along the coast from Santa Marta. From here we have done a few little side trips in the surrounding region.
Trek to the Lost City
I don't know why it sounded like a good idea to do a 5 day hike in these temperatues and humidity, but we signed up just the same. Ciudad Perdida, or the Lost City, is a complex of indigenous ruins, up in the rain forests of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, built by the Tayrona people. The trek wasn't that long, only 45km in total over 5 days, but it was absolutely necessary to stop at every possible water hole for a swim/soak to stop over heating!
The trek was better than expected. The hills of the Sierra Nevada are where the end of the Andes tumble into the Caribbean. They were steep and forested, though this did mean there was considerably more up and down than we had been expecting. On days 1 and 5, the steep hills were a patchwork of forest and more open farm land, so you got good expansive views of the surrounding landscape. On the other days, the path was deeper in the forest, often along rivers, with beautiful waterfalls and rapids. Everything was green, even the tree trunks were covered in green, wherever the bromeliads could get a hold. A few people still live and farm in this area and lived along the trail in indigenous villages.
The only way to get to Ciudad Perdida is this multi day walk. After another river crossing, and 1200 very tiny slippy steps up, our group had Ciudad Perdida to ourselves. Unfortunately, as was often the case in the afternoon, there was a heavy rain shower while we were up there. Ciudad Perdida, ("Lost City" in English) is called this because by the time the archeologists found it, the city had been so badly looted by grave robbers they didn't think they would be able to retrieve anything of historical importance. It was founded in around 800AD and abandoned when the Spanish came. The Spanish traded food and clothes with the Tayrona people for gold, however the clothes were infected with Western diseases (on purpose) and devasted the local population. When the Tayrona people realised what was happening, they buried a lot of the gold, abandoned their city, and retreated higher up into the more remote parts of the mountains.
The walk was disgusting! Within 20 minutes of walking you were sweating from everywhere (places I didn't even know I could sweat from), sweat dripping off your elbows, from your forehead into your eyes (mixing with insect repellent and sunscreen to give a real sting). We used a bottle of insect repellant between us in 5 days. The sand flies were mercenary, and the insect repellent soon came off with the sweat, river crossings, and jumping into the river to cool off. Nothing dried, and if you left it out over night it just ended up wetter. It's a godsend that photos can't capture smells too... though by the end of the trek we smelt more mouldy and damp than anything else!
Tayrona National Park
Tayrona National Park isn't what you'd really expect from a National Park. It's privately operated with a series of camp sites and restaurants at various 'resorts' along the coast. However like a National Park, no cars are allowed so you have to walk into the park (mule transfer is available at extra cost). The rain forest runs right down onto the beach. The beaches are beautiful white sand, palm fringed, and at almost all of them the water is too dangerous to swim - a helpful sign tells you how many people have died at each beach! We'd decided to go to one of the furthest campsites in the park, as it was one of the few places where you could go in the sea. This meant a rather scenic 2 hour walk through the park and along the beaches. Along the way there were plenty of people selling cold drinks and snacks out of cool boxes slung over their shoulders.
The beach we went to, Cabo San Juan, does have a reputation for being like a festival campsite and I have to agree. 4 toilets, 4 showers, and plenty of people and tents pitched one on top of the other. We hired hammocks, and we got there early enough to secure hammocks in the hut up on the headland. At night all you could hear was the crashing of the waves - though it was quite a walk back to the toilets, and there was a risk you got your feet wet as the waves broke over the sand bank at high tide! There wasn't a lot to do here, dip in the sea, sit on the beach, sit in the bar/restaurant, sit on the rocks watching the waves. It was a tough day!
Instead of walking out the same way, we had heard that the walk out via Pueblito (which translates as 'little village') was worthwhile. I have now learnt that words like "worthwhile" and "rewarding" never mean easy. The sign at the trail head said the walk was suitable for children over the ages of 5 - I couldn't make it up some of the perfectly smooth, rather steep boulders without a push, so goodness knows how a 5 year old is meant to manage it. It was a good walk up to Pueblito, with lush rainforest, rock hopping across boulders, beautiful enormous buttress roots, though quite steeply up, and in places it was definitely necessary to climb using all fours. Pueblito is another village from the Tayrona people, from the same time as Ciudad Perdida. From there it was another 3 hours across hills, through forest, back to the main road to catch a bus back to Taganga.
