I caught a local bus to somewhere near the Bogota bus terminal and walked the rest of the walk to catch an afternoon bus to Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast. When we finally cleared Smogota the landscape changed quickly from shadehouse vegetable farms to undulating dairy country, with a thriving population of eucalypts, probably Blue Gums, in both plantations and as weeds. As such the landscape reminded me a little of the Gippsland hinterland. Native vegetation eventually replaced the eucs and the undulations changed to native vegetation. The descent to sea-level took a full 4hrs... I`ll never complain about the Gillies Range again! Tough going - after that I managed to sleep a little until we stopped at a roadhouse where I ate the worst soup of my life. Describing it would require thinking about it again and I`d prefer not to. I managed to sleep most of the night and awoke to watch the savannah fly by until we arrived in Santa Marta. I transferred to my hostel which was cool enough with some great people; some of whom were sailing to Panama via the San Blas Islands, lucky bastards. However after the Cranky Croc all the other hostels don`t stack up, particularly walking around in low 30`s heat in the shade all day. There I met El Tigre, an enthusiastic kitten with a thirst for human skin - he also added a bit of extra weight to my sit-ups! I purchased food for my camping trip to the beach and off-loaded some gear at my hostel. The next day I pàcked and departed, caught a local bus to the park entrance, paid the hefty foreigners entrance fee, caught a ride to the first town and started to walk.
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