After 5 days of non stop treking in Ciudad Perdida we all agreed that it would be nice to spend some time relaxing in the beautiful national park Tayrona. Tayrona National Park is a protected area in the Colombian northern Caribbean region. It is roughly 34 kilometres from the city of Santa Marta. The park covers approximately 30 square kilometres of marine life areas in the Caribbean sea and approximately 150 square kilometres of land including part of the Sier...

Ciudad Perdida is an ancient city built around 600AC (earlier than Machu Picchu). The city was discovered in 1972, when a group of guaqueros (tomb raiders) found a series of over 1200 stone steps rising up the mountainside and followed them to an abandoned city which they named "Green Hell". When gold figurines and ceramic urns from this city began to appear in the local black market, authorities located the site of their origin in 1975. Even though it is called ...

To get to Santa Marta, according to our tickets, we had to take 2 planes. The first to Bogota, where we would have 30 minutes, and the second on to Santa Marta. When we arrived in Bogota we asked where we needed to go, the answer was the desk we had just passed when exiting the plane. It turns out that we had to walk off the plane to then get back on it and into the same seats. We all found this so funny. It was nice at least to be able to grab a coffee and ...

So.... Now we are on the dock in Tabatinga watching the boat leave in pitch black with now idea of what direction to head in or if the area was safe to walk around. According to the foreign office it was not! I love these situations because they make me feel like I am really travelling. We all agreed that we should walk into central Tabatinga and see if we could find a taxi to take us over the boarder to Leticia where Franky and Elien had book a night in a hostel...

For anyone who new our original itinerary you will be wondering at this point why we are heading along the Amazon to Colombia, Colombia never having been on the itinerary, and not Venezuala. Well over the 5 weeks travelling up Brazil, meeting other travellers a common pattern began to emerge. Everyone who had been to Colombia said it was the best country to visit in South America, whereas there were very mixed reviews for Venezuala and there was only one thing we...