As promised, there are photos of monkeys in this post. Like oh-my-gosh-real-life-in-the-wild-monkeys! Aside from traveling to Santa Marta, Colombia to get my dive certification, I wanted to visit this part of the coast for the beaches, specifically those in Tayrona National Park, a huge protected area that encompasses hills, mountains, beaches, and forests full of wildlife on the Caribbean Sea, not to mention some amazing coral reefs. Playa Blanca was great and all, but I was ready to see some real nature! Did you know that the Sierra Nevada in this part of Colombia is the highest coastal mountain range in the world? I did not. But as you round tight curves in the road, whether by bus or motorbike (more on that later), you’ll have beaches on one side and mountains directly on the other. It’s crazy, but it makes for some awesome landscapes. On Columbus Day, I headed to Tayrona from Santa Marta to hang out with some new British friends I’d met in Cartagena. Of course, staying at a different hostel than them, I got ready a little too slow and told them we’d meet up on the beach. I figured finding my way there solo couldn’t be that hard. And really it wasn’t… Yeahhh this is what I’d been […]