The Lost City
Trip Start
May 15, 2006
1
6
145
Trip End
Nov 2007
Santa Marta,
Colombia
Monday, July 10, 2006
The first day I regretted this decision as we had a steep uphill climb for 1 1/2 hours! I won't bore you with a blow by blow account but every day was hard and at night we slept in hammocks so it was pretty rustic. There were also killer mosquitos who seemed immune to repellent, even dean who never normally gets bitten looks like he has the measles! This is the most rustic thing I have ever done, one night we had to wash in a stream!!! I asked the guide when we booked it if the water was included and he said "Si, Claro" which means yes of course and seemed to be his answer to everything
Ciudad Perdida
. What he meant was that u could fill your water bottles up in streams along the way, everyone was drinking this water and laughing at me cos I insisted on using water treatment tablets, clearly they don't mind the possibility of picking up the odd amoeba or 2! I think they thought I was some sort of spoilt princess cos one night we were talking about those dragoman overland trips and I said I would never do one because u have to help with the cooking and cleaning the truck etc. Seriously tho its meant to be a holiday! They were a really nice group tho, there were 20 of us which was quite big but it meant there were a lot of people to talk to and u could walk at ur own pace, there was no pressure to stay together on the trail like there would be if there were 5 or 6 of you. This was good for me, my usual place was right at the back!! The trek was to a place called Ciudad Perdida or The Lost City, its where the 8 people got kidnapped from in 2003 and one escaped by jumping down a ravine - glad I didn't have to do that!! It took 3 days to get there. The entrance is up 2000 steps which was not as bad as it sounds, coming down them was harder, they are slippery and uneven and covered in moss, the guide held my hand the whole way, I think he either liked me or thought I was a liability cos he quite often held my hand on the hard bits, I think it was probably the latter!. It was really mystical when we got there, there are no huts left because they were made of wood but there are stone terraces where the huts were and lots of steps
Dinner time!
. It was only rediscovered in 1975 by grave robbers.It reminded me a bit of where king Luis? the orangatan in the Jungle Book film lived.Anyway in the end I enjoyed it, especially once I finished! 3 people in our group dropped out after day 2 which is apparently quite common. When we finished there were another group about 2 start including 2 people who must have been about 70 and didn't look like they were up to the job so I'm a bit worried about them.
We also visited a cocaine factory in the jungle, it was really interesting and it would put you off it for life, they start with coca leaves and add petrol, caustic soda, something that looked like creosate, sulphuric acid and acetone, nice! they don't make the finished product there just a paste which then has to have acetone added. One guy was taking a silly photo putting a spoon of the paste up to his nose and he got a tiny bit on his nose and it was really burning him. No wonder people lose their sceptums!
