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6 Day jungle trek
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My Panama boat friends and I (numbering 5) decided to go a small sea side town in northern Colombia to see if we could find out more information on a 6 day jungle trek. Once we found out the details the only person (besides me) that wanted to do the trek was Mattius. (swiss guy that talks like Arnold) Since we are traveling with a semi religious Israeli we have started to follow Hebrew tradition on Friday night and have a family Shabat meal. Its good time where Urone (a.k.a the Jew) reads in Hebrew from the Torah, wears a kipah and sings little Jewish Klingon sounding songs. Then we all eat!
The rest of the gang went to a near by national park for their own hiking and beach time. Meanwhile, Mattius and me were busing up to the trail head of the Ciuadad Perdida which in English means Lost city. This trek was 6 day 5 night affair that went deep into the jungles of northern Colombia. We had 10 people in our group from random countries. The trek was full of lush green jungle vegetation and many stream and river crossings.. It rained almost every afternoon so we always tried to get to our shelter by this time. Sometimes we were lucky and sometimes we got drenched!. It was a nice hike full of steep climbs, river crossing and lots of mud. Our guides were good and stopped almost every 2 hours to have a fruit break,
The lost city itself was not really that spectacular compared to Macchu Pichuu and other ruins I have seen. I was prepared for this and knew that the trek was more about the hike than the destination. The city is huge but the foundations is really the only part that is left which coincidentally does not make for the best photos. One day we had guy come to our camp and ask if we wanted to see a small cocaine factory. They use the word factory but in reality is just a rinkey dink little operation in the jungle the churns out cocaine paste which is then sold to the Mafia for drying and distribution. The guy went over the steps of how to make the paste and actually made the paste right in front of us. Its quite a complicated process but can be done in the jungle with gas, salt, lime, iodine and water. If the government military discovers these little shops the workers just torch the place and run for it.
In 2003 on this same hike 6 Israelis and 2 English were taken hostage by the guerrillas. Our guide told us the whole story because he was taken hostage with them. I guess it was big news in Israel but I had never heard of it. The strory was extremely interesting. The guerrillas held everyone hostage for 110 days. They let one English guy go who then in turn told the media that he escaped and lived off the land for 2 weeks. He claimed he ate wild rice and beans which does not grow wild in Colombia....So he turned out to be Wanker of the month.... I guess the Israelis ended having a good time, they had a kilo of weed, backgammon and sound-system. I heard they always looked happy in all the hostage photos that were posted in Israeli newspapers. Finally when everyone was released 2 of the Israelis stayed in Colombia permanently. The government killed all the guerrillas without mercy and the cause the guerrillas were trying to further went no where.
Eveyone on the hike was covered in bug bites except for me! Due to all the water crossing my feet were rubbed raw and I hiked the last day barefoot! More thumbnails ...
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