Jungle life

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So I am back from my jungle trek to the Lost City. It was a fantastic time despite a great number of mosquito bites (easily 50/leg), sore legs, and a sick stomach. We started from Magic Tours in Taganga with our guide, Miguel. There were 3 Americans, myself, ´Rambo´the snake hunter from Colorado, and Joanna the photographer from California/London. 10 mins in we picked up to Aussies from Adelay, allowing me to get my Aussie slang fix, but when we arrived at the resturaunt before the hike, were informed that the Aussies were with a different company so we couldn´t walk together. Weird politics I still don´t understand.

After a lunch of bologna sandwiches (ahh memories of being 5 years old again..) the hike started with an intense half day up straight up a mountain. We stopped about an hour in for some delicious watermelon, then continued upward to an amazing viewpoint of the Sierra Nevadas. I had gotten sick in Tayrona, so the uphill was tough for me but still well worth it. After about 3-4 hrs of hiking, we arrived at camp 1 and managed to get in a quick swim in the river before an insane downpour and the river turned red from mud and washed away our footbridge. It was tied to one side, though, as this happens on a daily basis this time of year. We had a delicious dinner of chicken in a great sauce, veggies, and rice, and I headed to be fairly early to try and get over my cold.

The next morning I work up to discover my camera had some home been left on all night and the battery died. I was bummed. Fortunately both my hiking partners took a million pictures so I will update when I get the pix from them. We opted to do a ´side tour´of a makeshift cocaine factory in the middle of the jungle. It wasn´t a big factory, more just for the toursits, but the guide (not Miguel) showed us how you go through the whole process of making coke. It was actually kind of interesting, but pretty unsanitary (even for my new jungle standards) and gives me yet another reason to never want to do it! Because he was missing the acetone for the final purification step, it couldn´t be sniffed, but we put it on our teeth and it basically just numbed our mouths for 30 mins. No crazy effects included. Oh well.

Day 2´s hike wasn´t too bad and we arrived to camp after a small rain shower and swim in a river. When we got in, the sky opened up and it got very cold. I spent the afternoon napping and trying to keep warm and dry but it was basically hopeless. After dinner Miguel made me some tea that was supposed to cure my cold. I slept pretty well, but was coughing just the same in the morning.

We started our day 3 trek later than planned because a girl from another group (cooincidently one of the crazy Aussies I had met in Cartagena) had been very sick and decided to turn back with the other 2 guys in her group. Because they had 2 other guys from England with them, we offered to bring them on with us so the guide could go back with the sick ones. Hugo and Max became 4 and 5 for the rockin Magic Tour group. We got in a little late to camp on day 3, but still managaed to be there before the sky opened up and prevented us from crossing the river. The rain in the jungle is crazy and it all runs down to the main river, making it impossible to cross which is why we had to get up so early in the morning to get to camp in time before the rains.

Since there is only one camp at the base of the Lost City, we wound up sharing with the whole group we started with on day 1 (3 or 4 different agencies). It was nice because we got to see the Aussies again, as they decided to do a 4 day trek so they would watch the World Cup final game on Sunday. They warned us of the mosquitos in the city, but I think the ones at the camp that night were even worse. My legs got eaten alive because I didn´t put on my bug spray immediately upon arrival. Oh well. After a chill night of talking and playing cards, we went to bed (real beds, but honestly I think I preferred the hammocks) to be up early for the City trek in the morning.

Another late start on day 4 got us to the city around 8:30. We climbed the 1200 steps and finally made it to the top with burning calves and quads. It was very pretty and had over 200 little house ruins and structures. There is a military camp on the top and the guards were very happy to take photos with the tourists. Since the photo maniacs in the group were taking forever as usual, Miguel told me and our 6th straggler who joined the group, Joe, and I to head down ahead of them. One of the soldiers pointed to a different way out, so I mistakenly followed him down into an area that obviously was not where we were supposed to go. We wandered a bit and, against my better judgement, I followed him down a set of stairs instead of going back to find the group. We made it all the way back to the river (AKA down another 1200 steps) to find ourselves in the wrong place of the river. Joe had the brilliant idea to try and follow the river down to where we started, but after a couple crossings, climbing over boulders, and him almost falling into the rapids, I finally decided to suck it up and go back. Back up the 1200 horrible stairs, and about 45 mins later, we got back to the city where poor Miguel had been frantically searching. He was ecstatic to see us, but we basically had to run all the way back down and back to camp. We scarfed down a big lunch and ran to catch up with the rest of the group. Thankfully, this only took 5 mins because there other group we had met up with had some very slow people in it.

We would tell the rain was coming soon, so we hiked really quickly to the next camp where it started to pour. Unfortunately, on the 1st night we had opted to walk more on day 4 and stay at a different place, so he had all the food farther up the trail. We had the option of staying the the other camp, but the prospect of good food over just rice was too appealing, so we sucked it up and hiked quickly through the rain and mud to the other town. Dinner and a shower made it 100% worth it! We were all exhausted and stinky, but we had chipped in for a bottle of rum so the night was fantastic. Miguel even bought us another bottle and sat around and chatted with us for a few hours.

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling not as hungry as usual, but wrote it off and had a big breakfast in anticipation for the trek anyway. We started with an hour of intense uphill and then a washed out, rocky downhill portion until we reached our first nights camp and had a snack. Again, I wans´t feeling hungry but forced myself to eat anyway. Big mistake! Miguel let me ride the mule up the hill (he knows I hate uphill) and my stomach was getting mixed up and I started feeling worse and worse. About an hr into the ride, I had to stop at a rest place and refunded my breakfast. I was so sick of the bumpy mule that I tried to walk back down, but was going at a brutally slow pace and eventually lost what was left of my apples during a river crossing. Miguel was so concerned that he made me get back on the horse because he promised we could get to town in 20 mins that way. Sure enough, 20 miserable minutes later we made it back. There was a tour of 50 people heading out and I must have looked horrible to the cheery fresh beginners!

When we got back to the restuarant, I got sick again and got a local to give me a motorcycle ride back to the car. The others ate lunch first so I sat around waiting for them to finish. The bumpy ride back to the road took at least an hour and we had apparently picked up half the town to come along. When we got to the main road, they had to fix something with the car, so I ran into the store and managed to lose what little was left in my system. Thankfully, I was then able to drink a little bit and started to feel a bit better. On the way back to Santa Marta, we had to drop a bunch of supplied off at different houses so the trip took forever! Finally, I made it back to good ol´Moramar and was able to shower and finally feel clean and warm!

I woke up a few times last night, but am feeling a million times better now. Hopefully it was just a flu bug and not a parasite!! Today I´m just bumming around Taganga, getting laundry done, and maybe springing for a $5 massage, then I fly off to Cali tomorrow morning. I still haven´t decided if I´ll stay in Cali or just catch a bus to Popayan right when I get in. Regardless, I hope all is well back home and I´m sure I´ll update soon enough!

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