Taganga, Tayrona, and Minca

After leaving Bogota, I met up with Hana and we traveled to Taganga to get our scuba certifications. Taganga is a small fishing town north of Santa Marta. I would not recommend going there unless you really want to take a diving course or do a few dives. The town is covered in trash and stray dogs and depending on your perceived gender you will be constantly catcalled and/or asked if you would like to buy cocaine and marijuana. The town is still figuring out what to do with the new surge of visitors who come to dive. I hope that as Taganga continues to develop, it can do so in a way that is both economically and environmentally sustainable for the locals. 

After receiving our diving certifications, NAUI open water for me and advanced for Hana, we took a day trip to Parque Nacional Tayrona. We hiked through the jungle for a couple of hours before reaching some of the most gorgeous Caribbean beaches I've ever seen. The white sand beaches were scattered with enormous white boulders and the water was bright blue. It's a good thing it was so beautiful, because I don't know how else we would have tolerated hiking in the 95 degree heat and near 100% humidity.

The following morning, we decided to travel to Minca, a small village in the Sierra Madre mountains. We had heard good things about a place called Casa Elemento so as soon as we arrived in Minca, we donned helmets and were whisked away by young men on motorbikes, or "motos", to make the hour long journey up the mountain (mom and dad: skip the rest of this paragraph). It began raining mid way through our journey, which made the already rough road even worse. Thick mud hindered the motos' ability to make it up certain parts of the road with so much weight, so I ended up taking my backpack and walking up the worst parts while my driver spun out in the mud. When we had almost made it to Casa Elemento, the bike I was on did a wheelie and I slid off the back of the seat into a puddle of thick mud. "¡Ay, mi amor!", shouted my driver in distress. He felt terrible because he had argued with the other drivers to be the one to drive me up the mountain (ugh), and he  ended up dropping his precious cargo into a puddle. Luckily, I was completely fine besides having my last clean pair of shorts drenched in mud, and we wade it the rest of the way to Casa Elemento without trouble. 

Casa Elemento is a hostel perched high in the mountains that has giant hammocks, great hiking, and excellent birding. Oh, and AMAZING vegetarian food with family style dinners. It was refreshing to be out of the heat of the coast and we took full advantage of the hiking trails and early morning birding opportunities. It was fun to be surrounded by fellow travelers in place without wifi or cell service. It turns out that socializing is best without social media... imagine that! After 2 days and 2 nights in the jungle, we decided to hike down the mountain to save the cost (and risk) of moto taxis and to get some exercise before an entire afternoon and evening on busses to Cartagena. 

I write this now from a bus with wifi (!!!) heading to Cartagena. We are currently stuck in traffic in the city of Barenquilla, still a few hours from Cartagena. I am hungry. My phone will die soon. I smell bad. Life is pretty darn good.