Lucy´s casual conversation with some locals in a small fishing village on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, ends up in a hell-trek through Tayrona National Park and a night conjuring up ways of escaping her generous guides.

Beneath a makeshift lean-to on the tiny shale beach, shielded from the intense Caribbean sun, a group of bronzed fishermen were playing dominoes and drinking bottles of ice cold beer. Their net cast in the bay, a lone swimmer was snorkelling at the other end of the cove. As a shoal of fish approached he signalled to the men on the beach.

Springing to their feet they scrambled down to the water’s edge and grabbing the net, began hauling in the slippery silver catch. Flapping, blindly, the fish were ripped from the sea into the dry heat, blood spurting from their gills as they suffocated, haemorrhaging and drowning in the air. Then suddenly they stopped and lay still, a silvery carpet covering the sand.

As I watched the scene I heard a voice from behind a rock. Expecting to have to fend off more unwelcome advances I came face to face with Mano. With long, dark hair and a lean, smooth brown body, his smile was open and friendly, As we chatted in broken Spanish, a young boy came running out of the waves and presented him proudly with a tiny seahorse.

Mano offered it to me, curling its tail around my finger. It bobbed up and down gracefully for a few seconds before he unwrapped it carefully and returned it to the sea.

We were staying in the small fishing village of Taganga, just 10 minutes over the hill from the old colonial town of Santa Marta, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Santa Marta was the first town founded by the conquistadors in 1525 and was the place where Simon Bolivar, the man who led the fight for independence from Spain, died in 1830.

Surrounded by mountains with brightly coloured boats scattered across a crescent shaped bay, Taganga is the perfect base for exploring Tayrona National Park.

The national parks in Colombia are largely unspoilt by tourism. Tayrona was the first to be established in Colombia in 1969 and, extending 85km along the Caribbean coastline at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, is still the most popular. The scenery ranges from jungle-covered slopes, to wild coastal woodland, long white beaches lined with palm trees, plus brown hills and succulent plants in the west.

Wandering over to the fishermen, Mano returned with four large fish and Eduardo and Franco. Eduardo was a musician who had formed a South American band with four of his brothers. He had just returned to Colombia after spending more than 20 years working in Europe.

“I spent three years in Paris, seven in Brussels and 11 years in Sweden. I’ve had three Swedish wives,” he explained. “I have had two Swedish wives”. Franco chipped in.

Mano was collecting driftwood to light a fire on the beach. He pulled out a knife and gutted the fish before skewering them on to a couple of branches and holding them over the flames.

Breaking off chunks of tuna he passed us fresh limes, which we squeezed over the fish with our fingers. “If you’re going to Tayrona, Franco and I will be your guides.” Eduardo announced between mouthfuls.

“How on earth did we let that happen?” Clare and I were clambering back to our hotel along the steep cliff path. “Two ageing Colombian musicians with five Swedish wives between them!” I was still trying to make sense of it myself.

The Bahia Taganga, was a small whitewashed hotel nestled into the hillside overlooking the bay. Taganga has only three or four hotels — La Ballena Azul (expensive), the Bahia Taganga (reasonably expensive) and The Playa Brava (very cheap — a flea pit). Sifting on the balcony listening to the sounds of salsa drifting up from the bars below, we sipped a glass of chilled white wine as the sun burnt its way through the horizon. We then headed down to the Ballena Azul — the only restaurant in town.

The next morning we caught a minibus into Santa Marta with our self-appointed guides and squeezed on to a crowded bus to Tayrona National Park. “Why is every South American bus full of squawking scraggy chickens?” Clare grumbled. “Do they take their bloody chickens everywhere?” Half an hour down the road Eduardo yelled at us to jump off the bus. Expecting to find ourselves at the park gates we looked around confused. We were in the middle of nowhere.

Crossing the road, we handed over the park fee to a sour-faced woman at what appeared to be a side entrance, and followed Eduardo and Franco up a rocky path, past a group of small holdings with pigs and chickens scrabbling in the dirt. The path gradually became steeper with thick undergrowth springing up on either side as we left all signs of habitation behind.

Our guide book said it was a one-hour walk to Carnaveral, the park’s administrative centre, and then 40 minutes to the Caribbean coastline and spectacular beach at Arrecifes.

Listening to Franco and Eduardo talking I overheard “Tres or cuatro horas” and stopped dead in my tracks. They were taking us on the scenic route via the archaeological remains of Pueblito, a four-hour trek up hill through the tropical rainforest in the sweltering humidity with our large backpacks.

Swatting vainly at mosquitoes and swarms of midges, occasionally being bitten by soldier ants scaling the sides of our trainers for a nip at our ankles, we traipsed furiously after Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.

Hot and sticky and covered in an itchy red heat rash we emerged out of the forest two hours later at Pueblito, a village built by the Tayrona Indians. We wandered around the old stone foundations and had a short rest before beginning our descent to the coast.

Scrambling over enormous boulders, the land eventually flattened out as we made our way along sandy paths with scrub undergrowth and palm trees to the beach at Cabo and our first view of the real Caribbean — a small white beach, thundering waves covered in palm trees and donkeys. Eduardo ordered lunch from the thatched shack on the beach and we ate fresh fish and plankton sifting in the shade of a tree. The final stretch to Arrecifes was a half-hour walk through the woodland and along the sand, waiting for the waves retreat before we dashed around the boulders to the next cove.

Then we were finally there — a long stretch of pure white sand lined with coconut palms swaying in the tropical breeze and horses running loose through the crashing surf.

The campsite at Bukura was set back from the beach with hammocks strung between the palm trees. It was a real hippie commune full of young travellers hanging out in the shade.

Dumping our backpacks we raced down to the electric blue sea and waded out into waves. After a shrimp and rice supper at the Paraiso restaurant Clare and I lay on the beach under the stars drinking rum and coke and plotting ways to get rid of our wrinkly guides.

Only we could end up in paradise stuck with a couple of dodgy Colombian musicians.

The lights in camp were turned out at 11pm. Crawling into our hammocks, praying they weren’t going to pounce in the night, we fell into a deep sleep beneath the coconut palms.