Don Diego - E

Don Diego

On the way from Santa Marta to Palomino, that seems to be a well known tourist center, there is the National Park Tayrona and Don Diego, a dream of a river.

You must tell the conductor by time to drop you down in Don Diego because you pass by very quickly. The village itself is situated at the bridge, is very small and mostly made of wooden barracks.

On the left and right side of the river you can walk along about 1 km. The left way is longer, but with more interesting landscape. You pass by a beautiful hotel in the middle of a well oranized park. There you also find a restaurant and the possibility to hire a boat, kajak or car inner tube to float down the river. You can hire everything in the village, too, but the prices are neither cheap in the hotel nor in the village.

Walking the way upwards, you can float until the village or even until the sea by boat, kajak or car inner tubes. We simply swam down the clear river until the bridge. Sometimes the river is only knee-deep, sometimes you have to swim. Mostly you find sandbanks on one or the other side of the river, there you can walk along too and cross the river from one sandbank to the other. After about 1,5 km you reach the village on the bridge.
Then we chose the path through a banana plantation to reach the sea.

The river is getting broader up to a silent, deep, clear lake, before it reaches the sea. the isa is separated only few meters from the lake. You can change sea and lake by few footsteps. An adventure! You can go back by motortaxi. It is cheaper than a boat. Be sure to organize the taxi before or have a handy with you, because at this beach there you find nothing - no taxi, no food, not even tourists.