27/08/2011
5:30am we woke up, packed, got ready and left the camping at…7:20!!! Why so late? We had to leave our bags at the reception and they only open at 7am^^’ Time to do the check out and everything, well it was already 7:20am!
We walked during 10 minutes in the beach and were already facing an issue: river in one side impossible to cross without getting wet, then big rock impossible to climb and then the sea, same as for the river: impossible to cross without getting wet… well, we took our walking shoes off, crossed between the rocks and the sea where the water was the lowest. We then kept walking in our flip flop meanwhile we were on the beach. We stopped at the Piscina beach, very famous to see corrals and swim but didn’t have time for that.
We kept walking in the forest, a nice flat but very hot walk for another 30 minutes. We arrived at another camping where we stopped to have a cold drink well deserved.
We saw a sight “not suitable for children under 5 or elderly”. We laugh about it during the 20 first minutes because there was nothing hard, maybe when we had to cross a little river, it might have been difficult but not that much! We laugh lot less when the rocks started popping on our way, becoming bigger and bigger. It was definitely NOT suitable for children under 5 or elderly, even under 7 I would say. It wasn’t hard in the sense impossible but in the way that the rocks were big to climb, it was raising a lot and we had precipices both sides at some point. But once again, the view was worth it.
"If you like more your shoes than the walk, it's not worth walking." Love it!
We met some people on the way and chatted a bit with them. 3 of them were very nice and were part of the walking club of Colombia. They gave us good advices about our trip to Bucaramanga and staff we should see over there. It was a nice and instructive break.
At the top I was a bit disappointed by the “pueblito”, I was expecting old remains but there was only 1 house…
Main entrance of El Pueblito
Whatever, we met 1 Alsatian (for those who don’t know it yet, it’s the same department and 1 Belgian travelling together and a Brazilian walking without shoes. It’s an important fact as we were walking in the forest, deep inside. I was impressed to see he could walk as fast as us…
Walking back to the camping we took another path which was deeper into the forest –no big rocks- going steep down or raising hard but we saw a lot of wildlife like lizards, monkeys and snakes. The monkeys were actually only a few meters from us and looked at us very interested.
Back at the 2nd camping (remember where we did our first break? Well same place) and shared a drink with the couple. We then headed back to our camping as we had a planning to respect. We walked quicker that what we expected so we only walk during 5hours going up and down. We arrived at our camping at 2:30 so we had time to take a shower, arrange our bags and eat a light lunch: Ceviche for my dad and a salad for me.
I asked my dad if he had a towel for me and that's what he gave me...thanks dad!
We had booked horses to go back to the parking. We thought that after 6hours walking it would be better to take a shower and horses than keep walking and get to the night bus stinking and sweated… I don’t know if it was a wise decision, you will understand quickly why. So, as I was saying, we booked horses at 4pm and got on the horses. It was the first time for my dad and the second for me. My first experience wasn’t a very good one as I hadn’t done any horseback riding before and when my horse went running to follow the other, I had no ideas what to do so I…felt! Jajaja. It’s funny now, it was a bit less at that time but I’m getting away from the story, I need to focus!
We settled on the horses and started the journey to go to the parking.
Everything was going well –I won’t say I wasn’t a bit scared where my horse was walking on very stretchy path but was amazed by its agility. Well, everything was going well until my dad horse (which was behind me) wanted to overtake mine….mine didn’t like it at all, speeded up and…. bitted the first thing he was able to bit: my dad’s leg :S I just heard “Holy crap he bitted me” and looking back (everything happened very quickly) I saw my dad was ok so I couldn’t stop myself….laughing. The situation was too comical! I assure you, I’m not a too bad daughter but it was just too comical…. You’re right; I might be an awful daughter as I’m still laughing now writing the episode!
When we finally arrived to the parking we looked at the bite and saw it wasn’t too bad but it wasn’t great either.
While we were waiting for the little white bus to give us a ride to the entrance of the park, a very kind family with a pick up and open space at the back asked us if we wanted to have a ride. That was super nice and we accepted right away. The dad was from Madrid in Spain (don’t look up to heaven, I found San José and Flamingo in Panama…) and the mother from Pereira near Medellin. They were on holidays to visit the mother’s family. It was a very nice meeting them and even if we didn’t have the chance to switch contacts, I wish them a very nice trip…well we might see them in Pereira in a few days; I don’t know how big the town is!
From the park’s entrance we were able to grab a little bus to go to Santa Marta town and then a taxi to the terminal. We arrived there an hour earlier so we were able to rest and wait quietly for the bus.
Tomorrow: Bucaramanga
