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Published: August 25th 2010
Main Terrace
Main Terraces of the Ciudad PerdidaI am writing this blog seperately to the main honeymoon blog as it was the most amazing adventure of my life with a brilliant group of people and something i will not forget as long as I live for many reasons which i will try to put across by writing this entry.
Day 1 of Trek
We Arrived at The Hotel Miramar at 8:30am feeling slightly nervous about being in the jungle for 5 days, the chap who runs the Mirimar Backpackers is a really nice fella and like our host at the casa familiar made you instantly feel you have nothing to worry about. We paid the 450,000 Pesos each which worked out about $250 US Each. The Hostal acts as an agent to Guias Y Baquianos Tour and although there are others such as Turcol I would recommend this company very highly.
For your money you have a guide who carrys and prepares all of your food from breakfast right through to your evening meals and lots of fruit and snacks along the way.
We were introduced to Joe who is from DC in the USA and also to David who is from the
Czech Republic and has been traveling for 13 years on and off. Next were 2 lads from the UK although One now lives in Spain who were called Josh and Koi, and a lad called Illias who was Algerian but now living in Germany.
We were introduced to our guide who was a very tanned and slightly built chap in his 40's called Isedro. Isedro was to look after us all for the next 5 days and was accompanied by his 17 year old son who is learning the trade who was also called Isedro.
Our Transport arrived in the form of a well used toyota landcruiser with adapted seats in the back ( 2 rows of seats facing each other) and no air con and all jumped in. Already in the Jeep were 2 American girls called Anne and Kate. These guys were sharing the ride and joining us on the trek but had booked through another company and had their own guide called Julias Cesar. They spent the whole trek walking with us and became very quickly a part of the group.
We headed out from Santa Marta and out towards the Sierra Nevada and
to the start of our advanture. The drive took about 2 hours on the roads including a stop for fuel whch was done on the side of the road by a young lad with a big plastic 5 gallon drum on his shoulder and a funnel. from there we started going off road and for an hour covered about 10K on very rough dirt tracks bouncing our heads off the roof of the jeep and suffering a very numb ass. Half way along the dirt track we stopped and our driver was chatting to a few guys who it seemed had rebuilt part of the road as it had collapsed in the previous nights rain thankfully we had already driven over the collapse so it was a bit late to worry about the weight of the jeep and 12 passenders getting over it.
We arrived at a village where we sat at a few tables and given a few huge plates of salad, Ham, Cheese, and bread rolls to make ourselves some sandwiches along with am ice cold big 2.5L bottle of coke which was just what we needed in the 40 Deg Heat. Isedro informed us that we
would be starting our walk and that after half an hour we would arrive at the Piscina , which turned out to be a deep pool in the river surounded with large rocks. Amazingly cool and clear water we all lay around for half an hour cooling down and getting ready for the next 3 hours or trekking to our first nights camp.
Looking back i think the swimming in the river was a softener for what lay ahead on the first day as when we resumed our walk Isedro said we would be walking uphill for just over an hour. The hill was like nothing I had ever walked up, it was roughly about a 1 in 3 incline, about 600m high and very narrow. Kat and myself looked at each other half way up and thought if it is like this the whole way then we wouldnt be able to make it.. an absolute killer and with the heat and humidity it meant we were walking about 10m and having to stop and drink nearly the whole way up. Fortunately when we got to the top The guides were there ready with fresh fruit and a rest
stop where we could look out over the vally to the most incredible views. For the next 2 hours we trekked along the undulating paths and then descended quite steeply in to a local indiginous village. We were staying just above the village in an area which had a baren like building with no walls and just a roof with a series of hammocks to sleep in. Kat and myself hadnt brought sleeping bags but there were blankets available at each of the camps. Once we arrived at was a case of change in to swimming gear and head to the river for a cool down.
The river again had a great big pool which you could either climb down to or like most of us did, jump about 4m off the rocks in to the deep water. By the time we got back the cooking stove was going and a huge pot of coffee was on the boil. Dinner that night was Rice, Salad, 1/2 a Chicken and to be honest I would have struggled to make such a nice meal in a modern kitchen let alone a make-shift stone barbeque!
Day 2 of the Trek
we
were up and awake at the crack of dawn. I had wanted to get up at around 4am for a pee but seeing a huge tarantula on the outside of my mosquito net i decided to suffer in silence until it went away. We had all gone to sleep about 8pm the previous night so by 5/6am we were all up and ready for breakfast. Isedro and co had prepared us chi papa con huevos which was a fried tortilla which has been coked with an egg inside it and extremely tastey. by about 8am we were all packed back up and heading out to camp number 2. Isedro had asked us all if we wanted to go on a quick factory tour to see how the locals used to make cocaine before the miltary had come in to the area and gave them incentives to grow other produce and forcing people like the FARC out of the area, We all declined as he wanted 30,000 pesos for the luxury and we thought we had already paid enough.
The climbs were a lot better and everyone was in good spirits and making god time meaning we actually arrived
at our next camp at about 1pm. A similar set up to the previous nights camp but this time the camp was sharing the space more closely with the indiginous tribe of the Kogi Indians. They still wore their traditional style clothes although they did have some modern wellies on their feet. They kept themselves private from us and didnt like to have their pictures taken as the Kogi believe that you are stealing a piece of their soul when you take a picture.
A short walk away you can make your way down to the river where you can jump off the rocks and swim in the deep water. the current is really strong and carries you down stream quite quickly so advisable to be careful if your not a strong swimmer. we all pretty much chilled out down here for the remainder of the day soaking up the sunshine and chilling out before heading back up to the camp. There is no electric in this camp and by 6pm it was all but dark so we all sat around on a huge table and benches to eat our evening meal which was again as amazing as the
previous night. before heading to the hammocks at a ridiculously early 8:30pm. This camp has to be one of the noisiest campsites I have ever been in, there were frogs all around going "woop woop... woop woop... Mehhh" other croaks and cicadas, pigs squealing and snorting around in the mud at one point it went quiet and then we heard some clanking of pots and pans.. I thought that the guides must be doing something in the cooking area but a torch came on and a Donkey was busted trying to nick some of the leftover food and quickly shot off back in to the forest much to everyones amusement.. not long after that everyone crashed out and before we knew it it was morning again and a 6 hour walk on to the next and final nights camp before we get to the lost city.
Day Three of the Trek
We had an early start on day 3 and headed ot of the camp around 7am. Today was going to be a longer walk and a few river crossings. We walked out of the camp and straight down towards a stream which we had to cross amd
headed out along the paths. After about half an hour we met some people coming the other way who were on their way back they all looked pretty knackered but also all had quite satisfied looks about them. most of the first part of the day involved pretty open pathways and great views, afterer about 2 hours we crossed another river. this one was a lot wider so we all removed our boots and slowly waded across to the other side.
Looking up to my right i noticed a cradle attached to a steel cable and pully system which i assumed was for carrying larger items across the river.. it looked pretty dodgey and i was glad we didnt have to use it.
Carrying on the second part of the walk on this day was largely under the canpoy and got very rocky with lots of roots to negotiate, Kat and Kate both slipped and landed flat on their backsides with ann giving herself a huge bruise. but everyone plodded on crossing the river back and forth about another 3-4 times. We must have made good time as we ended up getting to our third nights camp at around
midday which knocked about an hour off our initial time. Ther was one last crossing of the river before we adcended some steps and walked in to the camp.
This camp was diferent to the others and was made specifically for people on the tour. There was an area with about 20 hammocks and also an area which had a huge bunk bed sleeping about 10 on the bottom and 10 on the top all covered with a huge mosquito net. We opted for this but to be honest i think i prefered the hammocks. There was a large area where there were tables and benches, with cards, dominoes and books about the place. we dumped our stuff and headed back to the river for a swim and to give the clothes a good scrub and a wash.. having a small backpack = not many clothes so we wernt smelling the sweetest..
Up above there was a lot of activity with military helecoptors flying about, when we asked one of the locals he said that they were making a military documentry at the Ciudad Perdida and that there were lots of military up there as well.
lunch was
served an huge plates again full of salad, cheese, ham, tomato and also a big bowl of Vegetable soup. one thing can be said for this trip your not going to go hungry FACT. When we arrived there was a group of about 20 people who were heading back and had just been to see the Lost City, I asked one guy what he thought and he said it was amazing which made me quite exceited at the prospect. He was a bit of a div though and had also said he had bought 22g of cocaine from the cocaine factory tour on the second day. well done for supporting something that has runied a beautiful country over the last few decades. A bit later a few military guys appeared in the camp and congregated in an area near the hammock, by the time that it got dark there were abut 40 of them at the camp. Normally they are not permitted to camp in the same area as the tourists but due to the time they got there an exception was apparently made. We were told by our guides to keep our valubles with us in the bed as
they had been know in the past to be a bit light fingered. They didnt cause any need for alarm though and to be fair they had a gaurd on every entry and exit to the camp all through the night so it actually made it all feel a bit safer. By the time we got up they had all left the camp as if they hadnt been there
The rest of the night we all chilled out playing poker and dominoes before hitting the sack ready for the long awaited lost city...
Day Four of the Trek.
We had an early start on day for and were away from the camp at about 6:30am as we had a 1 hour trek to the Ciudad Perdida and then after we got back we would be having lunch and then heading back to where we camped on the 2nd night.
Ther were about 6 river crossings but the start of the steps that lead up to the lost city were only about a 35 min walk up river from where we were camped. the walk was fairly straight forward and just as we arrived at the bottom
of the steps Isedro gave us a quick talk about how the city was found. According to him the city was deserted in the 16th Century during the Spanish conquest as the Kogi had heard that the spanish were coming and they all fled quite quickly leaving a lot of their wealth in the city. Sadly for them the Spanish never got that far and the city was forgotten. It was believed to be dated back to 800AD which makes it some 650 years older than Machu Pichu. It was only in 1972 that it was rediscovered by a group of local treasure hunters who had been working on a seperate part of the mountain and it was only by chance that they stumbled across the steps that led down to the river that they hacked their way up to the top over a few days. The marked the spot and returned at a later date and continued the excavation. A lot of the gold artifacts were sold on the balck market bt authorities found out about the site and revealed it to the public in 1975 and still managed to find many artifacts which can still be seen in
It rains here..
Afternoon rains at Camp 2 the museum in Santa Marta .
The climb up the steps to the city is steep and the rock steps are very greasy and slippery which makes the going pretty tough ( especially later coming back down) Bring your 100% Deet as the mosquitoes are unbelieveable.. you can literally see handfulls of them landing on any part of your body exposed and lunching away. The steps are carved through the dense jungle and there are about 1200 to climb. well worth it though as when you break through to the top the view from the plateau is breath taking.. unbelieveable for just the 9 of us and our guides to be in such an amazing historical site with absolutely no one else there ( apart from a few military chaps who stay there in 6 month sojourns) All around the mountain there are stone circles which show where the traditional huts were built There are approximately 160 of them doted around the mountain. Isedro said that the higher up the hill your hut was the more important you were to the community.
we spent about an hour up there and then started to head back down to the
river and make our way back to the previous nights camp to get some lunch, pack our stuff and head out.
During lunch it started to rain quite heavily so we didnt hang around as the prospect of a long walk in it wasnt that great. our stuff was put in bin bags and then shoved back in the rucksacks with a further bin bag over that to keep everything dry and away we went. The walking was going really well and at a good speed as the torrential rain was keeping us cool which made it similar to a walk in the lake district in Autumn. Kat and I were pretty much speed walking and even joging up some of the hilly areas loving the break from the opressive heat. the only person ahead of us was the young Isedro and Davod the Czech Lad. David had been very military esque all through the trek and never liking anyone to be ahead of him. He liked to race ahead and do his own thing which was fine and wasnt really noticed untill a bit later on. After a few hours we reached the river crossing where I had
seen the cradle and we stopped and looked at the river in horror. ( PLEASE NOTE, THE EVENTS THAT FOLLOW ARE NOT WRITTEN TO SCARE YOU OR PUT YOU OFF DOING THIS INCREDIBLE TREK AS IT WAS A FREAK WEATHER DAY AND RARELY HAPPENS. i AM WRITING IT FOR MY OWN MEMORIES OF THE DAY)
The river that was a mere waist height on day 2 was now a raging wall of brown water and charging down the canyon of rocks like nothing i have ever seen before. I have white water rafted grade 4 rapids and that was nothing to what we were faced with. At this point it was only the 2 Isedros, David, Kat and myself that were there. I asked Isedro how we would cross the swollen river to which he pointed at the cradle and said we had to cross on that about 20ft above the river.If you can imagine a table turned up side down with a bit of angle bead around the legs that was the cradle! He sent small Isedro across on his own first who pulled himself in using the ropes which were attached to each side.
David then pulled
the cradle back to our side of the river and tried to get in to it without waiting for any help. You needed someone to hold the cradle while you climbed in ( with rucksck taken Off to get in it safely but david ignored this and proceeded to try and get in on his own. His rucksack cought on the safetly rail and the credle lurched out across the river meaning david fell and grabbed the pully ropes. He swang out over the river dangling beneath the cradle and held on whilist the river raged beneath, We all tried to pull him back to our side but the way that he was hanging meant it was too dificult. Isedro cut the rope that he was hanging on to help slacken it and hopeflly get him closer to the rocks on the other side but he couldnt climb up it and after about 5 mins slipped and fell in to the river below.
At this point Kat is hysterical. the feeling was sickening knowing you were looking at someone who potentially was about to die and not being able to do a thing to help them. I ran alongside
the river bank trying to keep an eye on David and with some fortune he managed to grab a branch of a tree and get his composure and then swim hard digagonally to the river bank. I ran back to shout that he was ok and get things organised for us to also cross. By this time Josh and Koi had arrived and were unaware of what had happened. we all then crossed the river on the cradle one by one and got to the other side
Isedro senior stayed the other side and said he would wait for the other 4 and that we were to go on to the camp. After about 20 mins of walking and thanking the universe that david was safe we noticed that young isedro was looking a bit worried. Koi asked him if there was a problem and he said that he was worried that if we didnt hurry another stream that we had crossed would be too swollen and we would be stuck. This being the case we all started to run and continued to do so for about 40 mins, David slipped on a hilly part and turned his ankle
La Piscina
Rock pool where we chilled out swimming and had to hobble the rest of the way. we ran through a camp where the miltary who had stayed in our camp the night before had bedded down out of the rain and eventually reached the crossing. the middle part of the stream was raging and the current was really strong so we formed a chain with Koi taking the lead followed by Josh, David, Myself kat and Isedro. Koi and josh got across and as the pulled david accross he let go of my hand and the current swept me off my feet, Kat tried to grab me and also got swept away by the current taking us both towards the main river that was tearing through the canyon behind us. I managed to grab a big boulder and at this point was literally hanging on for grim death with Kat hanging off my leg. I seriously thought this was going to be the shortest marriage in history. Isedro grabbed my arm and i managed to grab Kat and pull her up on to the boulder. and we both climbed out.
We tried again with Koi managing to get a good hold the other side and lean
across to us, He grabbed Kat and as he did she slipped again going under the water. Thankfully he didnt let go of her and he and josh managed to pull her across. We then did the same process with myself and isedro. Koi and josh were legends that day and im convinced that they saved our lives that day.
We then had one more to cross which was just before the camp but thankfully the kogi indians must have known we were on our wa back as they were all waiting for us the other side of the river with rope to throw accross to us so we could hold on while we pulled ourselves to the other side. We made it and got back to the camp soaked to the bone and buzzing with adrenalin tanking our lucky stars we had made it although we quietly had worried anticipation hoping that the other 4 managed to get back safely as well ( which they did ) Despite everything the guides still managed to make a great meal and a huge turine of coffee.
That night we lay in our hammocks and there were a few nightmares
Steps
Some of the 1200 steps leading to the ciudad perdida and small screams in the sleep from Young Isedro. I didnt sleep hardly at all as I lay there wondering what could have happened if fortune had swayed the other way. plus we were back in the noisiest camp in the word with the frogs and insects screaming away.
The next day we asked if this was a normal thing with the weather and Isedro said he hadnt seen it that bad in over 6 months. and normally only in monsoon season. he also smiled and said "no rivers today" ( to my relief )
Day 5 of the trek
We left camp early and headed back to where we had been dropped off in the jeep. the walk back to camp 1 was pretty straight forward but due to the previous days rain it was extremely muddy and difficult to walk in. as we headed out of camp 1 there is a bugger of a hill which didnt seem that bad walking down it but it was a hard hours climb to the top and then a flat walk before we descended down the killer hill which we climbed the first day and eventually back to
the drop off and pick up point.
We all sat shattered around the table and bought the first cold beer we had had in 5 days and then several more all buzzing and chatting away feeling pretty awesome that we had completed the 44 Kilometer trek in one piece whilst we waited for the jeep to pick us up.
The jeep came with the next group of people who were doing the trek. we smiled seeing how happy and bouncy they were not having a clue how hard the first hill was going to be to climb in a few hours. One thing I will say is if your doing this take some good walking boots as a lot of our group wore trainers and sandals and ended up with some of the worst blisteres I have ever seen.
We all agreed when we got back to santa marta to meet up and have a final few beers after a well needed shower and change of clothes. we had a great night and exchanged email addys and facebook details and then al headed off to carry on with what everyone was doing. some travelling some on vacation
and some studying.
The trek was one of the hardest I have done but worth every step to do and see what we did. We were with a group of great people that im sure we will keep in touch with and the guides were incredible and looked after us like nothing else. I would reccommend this to anyone and please dont be put off by the events that happened to us as it was a freak flood..
i doubt this blog does it justice but we had an epic time
Thanks for reading and i hope you enjoy the pictures.
😊
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:)
non-member comment
Coloooooooombia, no Columbia!
Colombia does not have any u in its name!!! lol!