Spat out by the Jungle

Hey Everybody, WE MADE IT!!!

The last six days have been incredibly challenging mentally, physically, and emotionally. There are perhaps no words to encapsulate what we just went through, but the most important thing is that we made it through!

The trek was the most difficult journey I have every experienced in my life. The terrain was extremely difficult, in many different ways. We encountered just about everything including sludging through mud for hours on end uphill (mountain), scaling the side of slippery wet rocks, trekking across huge open valleys where the sun beats down on you and there is no water to be found for hours on end, being charged by the crazy mountain donkeys that carry a ridiculous volume of supplies, climbing rock after rock along the rivers, crossing streams, and the true test was on the third day (and fourth as well, as the route was the same day) when we hiked for an hour along slippery rocks, crossed a waist-deep river, hiked for 4 more hours, then crossed the same river again 8 TIMES (which is completely exhausting every time) before taking on the 1300 steep slippery moss-covered steps up to the lost city. Just think about 1300 sloshing steps with water-shriveled, blister-covered feet. Two days in a row.

Our group was amazing, but perhaps added to the challenge of it all. Dani and I were ended up with six eager and competitive males: two germans, two dutch, and two Irish. All constantly trying to out-do each other in every way. Sometimes we would try to keep up with them or stay ahead of them, only to fall victim to over-exertion and the inevitable aftermath of emotional meltdowns. It worked much better for us to establish our own, steady pace, and to swallow our pride and accept that we were slower. Later we found out that some of the boys were munching on coca leaves while hiking, which gave us hope that perhaps their superiority was not natural, but that it was chemically induced. They were a lot of fun to hang out with.

The terrain, although very difficult, was incredible. It was very diverse, I don´t even know how to explain it all. I will have to post some pictures. We saw many magnificently coloured birds, lizards, a few snakes, giant spiders, and beautiful butterflies. The route we travelled also had many small aborignal settlements along the way and we met so many beautiful and strong people and their children. One little boy took a liking to me and showed this by sneaking up behind me when I was resting in my hammock and pulling my hair before running off screeching. We then proceeded to play peek-a-boo. For the most part, the aborignals that we met kept to themselves and did not interact with us foreigners (although most nights we stayed in their settlements with them), so this was particularly exciting.

Dani and I are currenly in Santa Marta again, staying at the Hotel Titanic. We are both recovering from the jungle. We have head to toe mosquitoe bites nastier than I have ever seen before on anyone. Our legs our covered in dark purple spots. It is so hot here, so it is quite embarassing to go out in public with shorts or a skirt, but too hot to do otherwise. Hopefully we will survive!

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