Minca and Tayrona National Park❤️

Good morning!

The past few days have been rather relaxing for us. We originally wanted to go to Tayrona National Park after the Ciudad Perdida tour, but my new sunburn ruined our plans, so we went to Minca instead :)

Minca is 45 minutes away from Santa Marta and is located in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. It's a popular destination for backpackers to relax and recharge before continuing their journey. One of the reasons is that it's easy to get special brownies with a green ingredient here in exchange for a small fee :D However, Laura and I were not there for that. We spent the first night in a hostel with a beautiful view of Santa Marta. And the second and third nights, we stayed in a hostel deeper in the jungle, which had a large swimming pool, a great bar, and a super relaxed atmosphere :) Ben, an Englishman we met on the bus to Minca, recommended this hostel. We met Ben there again and spent two fun evenings playing cards, enjoying cocktails, and delicious food :) We also went on hikes to waterfalls from this hostel, where we could also swim, which was a refreshing experience :) Plus, there was a free beauty treatment because there were lots of little fish in the water that nibbled off the dead skin on our feet :D Later, when we were about to head back to the hostel, it started raining. We walked through a real monsoon and it was really an amazing experience. It rained so heavily for about an hour, soaking us completely. There was also a thunderstorm right above us, which was really loud :D

After 3 days of pure relaxation, we finally went to Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona and stayed there for two nights, sunbathing. Believe it or not, I actually got a tan 🎉 My skin, which usually ranges from Alpina white to Heinz Curry Ketchup red, now has a slight brown shade added to it 🙏

In the park, we covered the long distances from the entrance to the beach on horseback. Normally, I'm not a fan of animals and to be honest, I've never ridden a horse before :D but it was really fun and I even galloped, which was really cool because these animals can get really fast :D Unfortunately, there was no instruction manual for such a large creature, so my horse did whatever it wanted. But luckily, it knew the way :D

We slept in hammocks on the first night and in a tent on the second night...the hammock was actually quite comfortable and thankfully had a mosquito net :) the tent was a bit musty and all we got were the tent and two musty mattresses. So, no pillows or a light blanket.. :D It was still a very nice experience and after the relaxing days, we're heading to Punta Gallinas on the La Guajira Peninsula for 3 days tomorrow :) Here, the desert is said to meet the Caribbean Sea, and we're really excited to see if sandboarding is really as cool as they say :)

Until then... Hasta pronto

Laura and Chrissie :)