Tyrona National Park

Tyrona National Park

After Cartagena, it was a foot hour drive up the coast, stopping for an hour at the Mud Volcano, a hot mud spring where you can float in the warm mud but it is a bit commercial and you pay for entrance, pay a man to push you about in the mud (he calls it a massage), pay to take photos and pay a woman to make sure you rinse all the mud off afterwards.

Then back on the road to Tayrona, home to an ancient civilisation that was wiped out by the Spanish conquistadors in their search for gold but also an area of outstanding natural beauty and biodiversity. It is a two hour hike from the entrance to the cam site but you get to see more of the park and it helps to keep the area unspoilt by development. A view of the beach and the lookout.

 A view of the beach on the other side of the lookout.

 The main hammock building with open sides for ventilation where those with hammocks sleep. The alternative is to pitch a tent.

 The outside of the hammock building.

 And it was another long hike to get out of the park and best to avoid the heat of the day so I set off before dawn and watched the sunrise from the beach as I made my way back to the main entrance.

 Another picture of the sun rise.

 And then a five hour bus journey back to Cartagena. I had been here before but it was where the boat was leaving from for the six day sail from Cartagena in Colombia to Panama via the San Blas islands. But on this visit, I took tie to see some of the more than fifty murals around the city such as this one overlooking a marina.

Land Rovers

Land Rovers and sloths in Tabanga

Just around a headband from Santa Marta on the Colombian coast is a beautiful little village. It was a small fishing community but it has developed as a tourist centre with several diving schools benefitting from the number of boats, clear water and an abundance of fish so diving and snorkelling are popular activities here. There are steep access roads and it is surrounded by hills so it has not suffered from a mass of concrete development but has kept its sleepy village feel.

 A view of another small community along the coast.

 And there was a surplus of Land Rovers and I think I have a photo of the majority of them.

 They are used to pull boats out of the water at the end of the day.

 And different colours.

 And styles.

 A rare two tone Land Rover.

 And its not often you see a yellow Land Rover.

 Another two tone with roof windows.

 An open top.

 This one was hiding on a drive in front of a dive shop.

 An open top and open back.

But there were other things to view such as this sloth up a tree holding on to his nuts.

 And this cheeky little monkey.

Cartagena

Cartagena

At last I was out of the jungle and back in civilisation in Cartagena on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. It is a fabulous city with a lot of history and colonial architecture. The Clock Tower entrance to the old walled city.

 Part of the defences overlooking the ocean.

 A detail of the bartizan on one of the corners of the battlements.

Another view of some of the defences.

 The former dungeons, now a tourist market.

 The old city is full of architectural gems.

 And old style  colonial buildings.

 The cathedral.

 A picture of the tower, but the streets are so narrow that it is difficult to get a good view.

 Inside the cathedral.

 A close up of the pulpit.

The Gold Museum.

 And the San Felipe Fort that guards the city from an attack from the landward side.

 A bartizan on the walls of the fort.

 A view of one of the bastions.

 And another showing three rows of defences and the sloping walls to deflect cannon balls.

 During the War of Jenkins Ear whose hostilities lasted 1738 - 42, a British force of 27,000 attacked the fort three times and despite the defenders only having a force of 2,300, they successfully resisted all the attacks and the Commander had to retreat.

 One of the many tunnels than run under the fort.

 The sloping walls on the landward side.

 Another tunnel.

 The approach to the entrance of the fort which zig zags back and forth under the walls and always exposed to fire from the walls above.

 Another section of the wall.

 The Museum of History and the Inquisition, the inner courtyard and the museum is housed in the former Inquisition Offices.

 The guillotine with the cathedral tower in the background.

 One of the inner facades of the museum.

 Another courtyard.

 The grand entrance to the museum.

Tabatinga and Letitia

Tabatinga and Letitia

After six days travelling up the Amazon the ferry finally arrived in Tabatinga, although we had to get off at 2.30am but the captain had arranged for us to sleep on another ferry until the gates to the port opened in the morning and we could go into town. The town is unique as it is at the meeting point of three countries, Brazil, Colombia and Peru. There are no roads in or out of the city and border restrictions are relaxed and you can walk from country to country without border formalities. You only need to get a stamp if you are leaving the city to go to another country.

I wasn't staying long in the city as I was going even further up river to an eco community. And just getting off the boat we came across an iguana.

I couldn't resist a photo of a VW beetle in Leticia.

At a bar in Peru, I tried to get a parrot to sit on my shoulder but he wasn't interested.

A typical house at the eco community.

There are no roads in the village, just a concrete path wide enough for two people to pass. It was a very pretty village but there were a lot of biting insects and I couldn't wait to move on.