Tayrona

Tayrona is 150 square kilometers of protected land where the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta descends directly into the Caribbean Sea. The forest here is dense enough to qualify as jungle, but it opens repeatedly onto white sand beaches where the water is shallow and clear, and where the sound of the ocean competes with birds you will not encounter anywhere else on Earth. More than 300 bird species have been recorded inside the park. The marine zone protects more than 100 coral species in Caribbean waters that remain some of the most intact in Colombia.

The park was established in 1969. The Kogi, Wiwa, Arhuaco, and Kankuamo communities, descendants of the ancient Tairona civilization who built cities in these mountains long before the Spanish arrived, maintain ancestral rights over large sections of the territory. The three annual closures (February, June, and October-November) exist in part to allow these communities to conduct spiritual ceremonies on their ancestral lands, and in part to allow the ecosystem to recover from visitor pressure.

Cabo San Juan del Guía is the most iconic point in the park: a headland where two beaches meet at the base of a forested hill, with hammocks strung under a traditional structure that has appeared in more Colombian travel photographs than almost any other image in the country. Playa Cristal (also called Playa Arrecifes del Paraíso), accessible by boat from the Calabazo entrance, has the clearest water in the park and has been ranked among the top 25 beaches in South America. The trails between them pass through forest that is never less than interesting.