Tayrona National Park Colombia

Legendary

Explore this beautiful park and learn about the Tayrona civilization that thrived in this region.

Photo by Amanda

In 1972, treasure hunters searching for gold in the Colombian jungle found a stone staircase disappearing into the hillside. They climbed it.

At the top was a city of stone terraces and plazas, abandoned for roughly 400 years. Local tribes had always known it was there and left it alone, believing it was protected.

It's now called Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City, and it was built by the Tayrona people. Their civilization rose around 200 AD and thrived until Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 1500s.

The Lost City is about 650 years older than Machu Picchu. It sits deep in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, reachable only by a four or five day hike.

Tayrona National Park is named for those same people, and it sits on the Caribbean coast below the mountains. A smaller Tayrona ruin called Pueblito lies inside the park itself.

Colombia declared it a national park on April 24, 1964. It covers about 150 square kilometers, roughly four-fifths of it on land and the rest out in the sea.

The geography is unusual. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the highest coastal mountain range in the world, and its foothills run straight down into the Caribbean like fingers, carving out bays and coves.

That means you get many different ecosystems packed close together. Tropical rainforest covers the hills, mangrove swamps line the shore, and coral reefs grow in the warm shallow water offshore.

More than 100 kinds of coral live in those reefs, alongside over 400 species of fish. On land, the park is home to 300 bird species, including toucans and macaws.

Indigenous communities still live in the Sierra Nevada today, including the Kogi, Arhuaco, and Wiwa peoples. They consider the mountains sacred and call the region the Heart of the World.

Hike the jungle trail to Cabo San Juan, the park's most famous beach, where thatched huts sit on a rock between two bays. Snorkel at Playa Cristal, one of the best spots for seeing the reef. Walk up to the Pueblito ruins to see Tayrona stone terraces and paths without the multi-day trek.