Finally! After many days of travel and delights, we made our way to our dream destination - Tyrone National Park. The park itself promises a lot because of its location on the Caribbean, pristine beaches, jungles, animals and ancient people still living there and all gathered in one place. We knew that the prices in the park were "cosmic", just like the entrance fee, so we went ready and "armed" with lots of bread, canned food and 12 liters of water, which is not pleasant to transport by hand. We paid and headed into the jungle, which was supposed to take us, after about 2 hours walking, to the first beach of ours - Castiletes. In the first minutes we were greeted by a beautiful green snake that blends perfectly with the environment. The reptile was setting up a dead frog on the road, and after feeling threatened by our company, retreated, which we were genuinely happy about.
After a long walk, with lots of sweat and back pain from canned food and water, we finally landed our heavy backpacks on the dream Caribbean beach. He was, in our opinion, the most beautiful of all the others we visited next week in the park. We were in the midst of tall coconut palms, a huge white beach with no steps in the sand and sea, ready to absorb our hot bodies. All this was just for us, there were no other people on the beach. And, as true chameleons, we blend in completely with the nature around us, but let's face it: we don't have the vocabulary to describe the grandeur of the beaches we saw. That's why we rely on photos to help us with descriptions.
On the second day, we started exploring the nearby beaches and were not disappointed with the views and the coconut water we drank. We found a whole fallen branch with coconuts on the beach that "opened up a lot of work" for us. The coconuts in the park are plentiful and in the following days we literally ate and overcooked with coconuts. Something we don't complain about!
Tired and exhausted, after a long walk and a "fight" with coconuts, we returned to the tent ready to lay our backs on the shuttles. However, unfortunately our reality collides with another Caribbean reality - the ants. The whole tent, from head to toe, was in ants. We want to stop there, but we can't help but write about the food. Bread, oatmeal, peanuts, cookies, "floated" in ants. Thousands of little bastards ate our food. We had no choice but to start cleaning the food. We couldn't afford the luxury of throwing anything away. And to admit, peanut peeling wasn't so bad until the oatmeal came. The torture continued for 2 hours, after which we had a can of tuna, bread and maybe ants. But what to do, no one runs out of extra protein.
Despite the beautiful location, we had to continue further into the park and find cheaper camping. A condition we couldn't ignore, given our desire to stay in Tyrone for about a week. The search began and our luck smiled. The new location was in the central part of the park, and predisposed to long walks during the day and quiet Caribbean nights, at twice the price.
In the following days, we did not cheat on our style and made numerous walks around the park. Something that made us love him even more. The feeling of walking and sweating in the jungle is not the most pleasant one. But knowing that you will then "tumbling" into the clear seawater and resting under a palm shade with a light sea breeze, all sweat and fatigue remain in the background.
Not our lazy style gave us the opportunity to enjoy the beaches, literally forgotten by such lazy tourists. We used to go beach after beach, thirsty and looking for yet untouched and uninhabited beaches. To our delight, most of the people living in the park seemed to be lazy as everyone gathered on the beach around the restaurants. This meant that we had pristine and untouched beaches, just for our steps in the sand.
With the passing of days and the depletion of our nutritional resources, we have increasingly resorted to our so good coconut friend. We got so close that it was on our menu, both at breakfast and at dinner. With that, we came up with a new phrase that you won't, became a favorite for us over the next days:
"Yo no busco por coco, coco busco por me!" - "I'm not looking for coconut, coconut is looking for me!"
We have not betrayed the strong connection between coconuts and us. We didn't want to think that our "friendship" with them would be limited to Tyrone. We put a few in our backpacks and continued on our Caribbean adventure, looking for more beaches.
