Cartagena and the Lost City

The New Year began with a trip to the 'historic' city of Cartagena, a few hours along the coast from Taganga. The main draw to Cartagena is its famous fortress, built in the 17th century to repel pirates and the invading English, which houses an old colonial city, now referred to as the old city. All the hostels are in a seedy, poor neighbourhood to the south, Getsemani, which seems to be populated solely by crackheads, prostitutes and crooked-looking cops. This, combined with the oppressive heat, sent me back to Taganga, the fishing village where I had spend Christmas and New Year. Sadly this meant I had to bid farewell to Stuart and Adele, who went down south to the Andes to spend a few days before returning to Manchester. We did manage to have a great last night in Cartagena though. As well as being Colombian summer holiday season, there were also lots of gringoes in town for Ultramar, the annual dance festival on the beach, this year with major European DJs like Tiesto and Paul Van Dyk in attendance. Sadly, this was cancelled at the last minute, and nobody in Cartagena seemed to know why. We got a differnt story from every local and gringo we asked. It was a typically Colombian farrago, a flavour of chaos rarely seen in the west (with the exception of the England and Wales Cricket Board, especially in the last week!). Colombian organisation are two words that don't go together. Timekeeping here is seen as a western pecadillo; an eccentric obsession that burdens rather than liberates. In fact, the word 'now' (ahora) can mean any time in the next few hours. 'ahorita' means very soon, and 'ya' means right now. It stresses some people out that time is treated with such indifference, but there is no point in complaining, and life is much easier in Colombia if you shrug your shoulders and think of something else to do while you wait. Although the festival was cancelled, there were plenty of hastily-arranged beach parties to accomodate the frustrated throng, so we made the most of it as best we could!

Back in Taganga I met up again with Rob, Tristan and Tom for our five-day trek to the Ciudad Perdida (Lost City), supposedly one of the most gruelling treks on the continent. The Lost City is a Machu Picchu-like citadel built in the jungle by the Tayronan Indians, who built it after the Spanish arrived but then abandoned it for fear it would be discovered by their oppressors. It was rediscovered by looters in 1973, who made off with a lot of gold, and was 'officially' discovered by the Colombian government two years later. If the Inca Trail's major obstacle is altitude, the Lost City's is heat. Lots of it. It is a 22k return journey, sleeping in hammocks every night, dousing yourself in mosquito repellent, and sweating like Gary Glitter in court. Although it was a challenging enough walk, it wasn't as tough as everyone had told me it was going to be, and we even skipped a day by cramming two day's walking into one. There were many highlights: on day five we were woken up by our guide Saul, but none of us actually managed to get up. However, when Saul reappeared with a toucan for us to hold and have photos with, we were out of our hammocks lickety-split. Rob reckoned Saul has a gringo guidebook that says, section 4, subnote C: "Gringoes are both lazy and stupid. If you struggle to get them out of bed in the morning, bring them a toucan. They will be transfixed by the colours of the toucan". It worked.

The area is also full of army trainees, who have to do a four-month stint in jungle terrain. If there will be any conflict with FARC in Colombia, it is likely to be in these conditions, so it is essential they know their onions out here. They looked bored out of their minds, and were happy to pose for photos with us. They even let us hold their machine guns! The trek was varied and interesting, there were some precarious cliff-walks, some river crossing which we had to wade across, and the climb to the Lost City itself, 1,200 slippery little Ewok steps which makes you feel like you have accomplished something when you get there. You also see lots of Cogi indians on the way, all with their trademark white smocks and long, obsidian-black hair, who still live in the jungle on the way to the Lost City. It was their forefathers, infact, who built the city itself.

We completed our trek with a few aching limbs, and dragged ourselves back to Taganga. Tomorrow is my last day on the coast, so I will be heading back to Medellin for a month for my volunteer work placement which begins on Monday. I will also be saying goodbye to the Aussies, who are off to Venezuela for a few days, which will end a great two months of travelling with them. However, it is going to be refreshing to be based in a city I love for a month, recharge the travelling batteries and then heading off to Brazil in March.

---

---