Horseback rides out of half of Tayrona National Park today was a must. Had we more time, we would have stayed an extra day to relax longer in the park, but with only a week left of the trip, we were a little anxious to get to Cartagena. We woke up to rain, and lounged early in the morning. Dozing off, reading, listening to the rain. It was lovely. Once the rain stopped, we headed for the horses and bypassed the even muddier ravines (due to the additional rain last night) by foot. I have never been so grateful to be on a horse in my life.
Instead of taking what felt like two hours the day before to cross the muddy trail, it only took about twenty minutes. While we were on horseback, a handler ran along side of us hustling the horses along. I was impressed (and jealous of his rain boots) at how fast he moved through the ravine. We trekked out the rest of the way, then hopped in a bus back to the park entrance, another bus back to Santa Marta, then a cab to El Rodadero, while we waited for yet another form of transportation; a shared taxi to Cartagena.
When our shared taxi was over an hour late, the company decided to inform us that they had canceled the trip that night. (I thought Andrew was going to lose it.) We figured out another way and once our taxi arrived to take us to a different bus station, our plans changed one more time and we decided on a third way to get to Cartagena (thanks to our taxi driver) and hopped in another shared taxi a few blocks away. Halfway to Cartagena, we stopped off the side of an expressway, were told to hop out, and ushered to another shared taxi heading all the way to Cartagena. At the beginning of this trip, this would have worried me. At this point, I’m completely unfazed. And then, not three minutes after checking into our room in Cartagena, the electricity went out on the entire block of the city. Because, at that point in the day, why wouldn’t it?
