Parc National Tayrona and Minca

---

Tayrona and Minca are two places that are a perfect escape from the bigger cities. Both can be visited as a day trip or overnight.
Parc national Tayrona is popular due to the jungle dropping in the the sea with massive boulders lying all over the place. It also has great little beaches that offer an escape from civilisation.
We did this park as a day trip. We got there at 8, when it opens. We took a bus for 10 minutes to avoid spending an hour walking to the main walking trail.
It takes almost an hour to get to the first swimable beach and an extra 40ish minutes to get to the most popular beach of Cabo de Juan.
We had a brief swim on the way due to already being drenched in sweat. We were glad we decided to head straight to Cabo as about an hour after we arrived, more and more people started flooding in and it got quite busy. There are two beaches at Cabo, split by a rocky view point and offer amazing views of the mountains behind. A swim was very refreshing too!
There is only one restaurant at Cabo and as people arrive, they put their bags on the tables and go for a swim. We were hoping to have an early lunch but found no available table so we started walking back to another smaller restaurant which worked well.
Tayrona was really nice and it involves around 12km of walking through jungle and beaches in hot conditions, but it's definitely worth visiting!
We stayed in Palomino which is a good place to relax and base yourself. There are many hostels here and we had a nice hostel with a pool and ate pizza and burgers after having several days of rice with fish or chicken.

The tiny village of Minca sits at a higher altitude behind Santa marta and is a great respite from the heat. There are some activities to do here such as day walks to various places like Pozo Azul, a natural water pool for swimming and other points of interest.
We stayed the night here and had the worst burger in the entire world here! Who puts coriander and melted cheese on top of a sugary bun with cold chicken in between?
Minca was a nice little place to relax as well and one night was sufficient. We got there from Santa Marta which works well as a base as there isn't anything to see and do there except wash our smelly and dirty clothes.

---