Santa Marta, Magdalena, Colombia
Tyronna is an area of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast that is a national park and is home to 4 indigenous communities.
We visited one, the Arhuaco, in their home of Katanzama.
A local guide along with a member of the community showed us around, then we had an opportunity to meet their ‘Mamo’, spiritual leader and to ask questions.
They are farmers growing multiple crops including, bananas, plantain, cacao, cassava and coffee. They are mainly self sufficient apart a couple of things including Rice.
We were only shown the outside of their homes, school and ceremonial huts and most of the villagers remained at a distance.
This is their sacred tree where ceremonies are also held.
We asked several questions including, what is the role of grandparents? to teach the children about the old ways, so that the knowledge doesn’t become lost.
What happens when you die? That is the end. You are buried with all your belongings. You can leave the community to study but then need to return otherwise you are completely excluded.
It is not possible for anyone other than the tribe members to live in the community. This is to ensure the survival of the community.
Three times a year the park is closed to visitors so that the tribes can perform necessary ceremonies to honour Mother Earth. There are many sacred sites in the area.
At the end of the visit, we were each given a cacao seedling to plant. The whole of this are was populated by trees planted by visitors.
After the three hour visit we checked into our charming hotel Villa Margarita. Which joyously had a small pool to continue practice as hippos. It is close to a beach but the waves were big and the water brown from a recent hurricane somewhere in the Caribbean.
After a sweaty night ( no AC) we assembled early for a 10k hike in the National park. A beautiful walk through the jungle to the beach which involved some flat bits and many steps up and over rock formations. Not super tough under normal conditions but with extremely high humidity it made for hard going.
Lunch and swimming at a beautiful beach for a couple of hours was ample reward. Along with the many howler monkeys, crabs, leaf cutter ants and vegetation that we saw along the way.
