TAYRONAS/ SANTA MARTA

So we are in Colombia and welcome to the Caribbean Sea! We bussed our butts off through the bulk of Colombia up to the top.....our first port of call was Tayronas Park, a National Park/ Jungle that edges onto deserted beaches! A mission to get to after walking for 40mins in the jungle heat...but worth it and totally beautiful. Stayed in hammocks out in the open, watched a ridiculously amazing thunder and lightening storm on our first night....none of us had ever experienced anything like it before, spent 5 days lazing on the beach tanning, reading, swimming. We love the Caribbean.

The veiw from our hammocks....we woke to this every morn.

Our beach.....pretty rugged surf. A more tranquillo beach was a little walk away from here but we quite liked the surf.

We found a random bakery in the on the edge of our beach, nestled into the jungle. Just a wooden shack with a wood fire oven......but with great chocolate filled bread! So each morning we headed here for Pan de Chocolate and a short black coffee.

Us swimming in Paradise a little way round from our beach. Us and only two others were on this massive beach. The water is sooooo warm!

Us back in the main town, Santa Marta, an hour away from Tayronas. Cool town on the beach....experienced mega cheerleading practice/ shows as a competition was on when we where there (´Bring it On´ styles). The town was totally packed...very social place, everyone hangs near the beaches especially on this day as it turned out to be a public holiday. The beach was jamma!

MINDO

Departed from Quito for a few days to the Cloud Forest (Jungle) on the other side of the equator. This place was really cool and famous for being the 2nd top notch bird watching place in the world! And for us bird enthusiasts, we jumped at the chance to get into some serious bird watching action. Up at 5...walking for 6 hours.....committed and surprisingly good. Saw some pretty cool birds. Stayed at a really cool hostel with a great family. Stayed in their attic with massive windows over looking the jungle. Possibly our best jungle experience so far.

Us surveying the area......only the best, first rate equipment for real bird watchers! Our guide Marcelo (who owned our hostel) was amazing at spotting the birds. We soon got the nack of it and spotted them ourselves.

This is a bird, a Toucan...... We also saw a very rare Equatorian one, this was really something special. Even better than that.... we managed to catch a glimpse of a ´Cock on the Rock´! Too quick to catch a photo though. Shame.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Yes, this is a woodpecker. We saw a grand total of 5 types that day, a first for us avid bird watchers and a record total for our guide Marcelo. Actually, Marcelo mimicked the birds song calling this one over to us so we could take photos of it. Pretty impressive really.

On our watching extravaganza...we caught this cable car thing over a gorge 120mtrs above the jungle. Then we hiked a bit to a waterfall to jump off. Freezing water but fun.

With freezing water in mind...the next day we decided to spend an hour in it tubing. It was a grade 2 river so it was preeettty full on as you can see in this photo! Wow, what a ride. We did have a Mute instructor which was pretty interesting.