The Lost City
I dreamt of doing the lost city trek ever since I heard about it. It involves 3 days hiking through the jungle until you reach a “lost city”. It’s a city that has existed for thousands of years, but died once the Spanish colonized this area. The city got buried in the jungle for a long time until in the seventies it was rediscovered by thieves looking for graves that might contain gold and other valuable objects. Just the thought of walking through the jungle for 3 days and all of a sudden discovering a city in the middle of nowhere, was so appealing to me that it was this trek that really motivated my whole trip to Colombia.
Day 1: The trek was a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. The first issue, was that our guide totally ran off and was impossible to keep pace with. The second problem was the insane amount of rain. I made sure to go on that trek when it wasn’t supposed to be the rain season, but I guess you can always have bad luck. The whole terrain became just really slippery and muddy. We were literally just sliding down the hill in the mud. My whole legs and boots were covered in mud when I arrived at the first night’s camp and my clothes were just a mixture of sweat, mud and rain. That first night, it rained so strongly that we could barely hear each other…. Welcome to the jungle!
Our hammocks for the night…
Rain, rain, rain…
Day 2: The following morning was the worst. It was still raining insanely and it was quite cold in the morning. So I had to go back into my wet shorts, wet socks and wet hiking boots. Of course I had dry clothes as well, but what was the point if everything would get soaking wet as soon as I would step out from our shelter? We wrapped our backpacks and ourselves into garbage bags to prevent getting even wetter than we already were. And then came the first river…. As soon as we got there, our guide simply crossed the river with his hiking boots on. We were told to bring sandals to this hike and we assumed that it would be for when we had to cross the river. But there were no such things, our guide ran right through and at that point we realized that we would have to hike in wet shoes for the rest of the trek. We ended up crossing about 5 rivers each day, all the rivers going up to my waist with freezing cold water, and I remember until today the feeling of stepping out of the river and continuing to hike with my soaking wet boots.
The 2nd day’s hike was just as challenging as the first day’s. It went up and down, up and down, up and down. They also cleared the path the previous day, which means that they cut all the banana leaves that were growing onto the path. Having all those banana leaves on the ground, mixed in with the mud, made the whole thing just more slippery. But once we reached the 2nd camp, we were rewarded with a hot vegetable soup… and after that, I went straight to bed!
Later in the evening, some indigenous visited our camp. It was funny, they looked at us with as much curiosity and wonder than we looked at them. They made the greatest efforts to talk to us and went on and on with stories. I only understood 30% of it, but it was fun. It really felt like two different worlds trying to make a connection with each other.
Crossing an indigenous village while walking
Coffee Beans!!
Day 3 was sunny!!! It really made me realize how beautiful that whole jungle area is! With the rain of the previous days, you couldn’t see further than a few meters, but now that everything was clear, the scenery became so gorgeous! Again, we had to cross a few rivers and now the current became really quite strong. We had to hold on to each other in order to not get knocked over. The guide was very funny. There happened to be only women on this trek, so he kept calling us his princesses. He was small in height, but still very strong. So he had to go back and forth in the river making sure none of his princesses would get carried away by the strong current.
We also met a few militaries on the trek that were there to protect the tourists. They were quite funny. The first thing they asked for is to have pictures taken with us. It was hilarious! They must have their cameras full of pictures taken with foreign women that they each saw for 5 minutes.
In the afternoon of the 3rd day, we reached the lost city. It was surprisingly beautiful! I had kept my expectations low, because everyone told me that this trek is more about the journey than the destination. But the setting was extraordinary! There was this opening in the jungle with this beautiful view and a waterfall right behind the lost city! The way to the lost city is really magical. You keep walking the trek until at some point, you reach a set of stairs that come from nowhere really. Then you climb up 1200 steps until you reach the entrance of the lost city.
The lost city is another sad example of what European colonizers did to other cultures. The Tayronians who used to live there were very advanced in their culture. They had a complex political system and made a lot of gold ornaments. But when the Spanish conquerors came in 1500, they of course wanted the gold. At first, they were able to trade gold against mirrors and magnets, as those were seen as magical to the Tayronians. But at some point Tayronians had enough mirrors and didn’t want to trade anymore. Then the Spanish sadly killed all of them.
The evening was freezing cold. We were now at 800m altitude and were so cold that almost nobody slept that night.
Day 4 was really pleasant, almost too easy. It was sunny again and we only hiked for 4 hours. The wet shoes were the only torture of the day. Mornings were freezing, so getting up and stepping into cold, wet and smelly shoes was such a nightmare. The moskitos were also really bad that day. In the jungle, moskitos are an all day thing and don’t just appear in the evening. Somehow, by the end of that day, I had over 50 bites just on my legs. Another thing that surprised me in the jungle were the frogs. They were everywhere and it was really disgusting, especially in the evening. You would have to carefully avoid them, when going to the bathroom. Once or twice, I collided with a frog while walking. Really not a pleasant experience…. This was also the last evening of our trek. So as a surprise, the guide got us some champaign. It was quite a memorable evening… Champaign in the jungle, among frogs, moskitos and all sorts of other animals.
Children at work. Note the machete in the hands of the 6 (?) year old. He descended that tree, in order to get the bananas on top of it.
His friends then joined him to help him carry the bananas…
Day 5 would be the longest day of the hike, 7 hours. We started the day at 5.30am in the morning and were at our destination at 1pm. At certain points of the hike, we couldn’t believe that we actually took that same path to the lost city. Without the rain, the view was soooo gorgeous!
On our way back, we met about 80 people headed for the lost city. It was the start of the holy week and Colombians were rushing to do the trek. We were so lucky to start early! I can’t believe we had the lost city to ourselves!!! Finally, as we got back to the start camp, the jeep was awaiting us for another 3 hours of car ride. Our two guides, Jose and Jesus, who spent the last day collecting flowers in the jungle for their wives, left on their motorbikes.
What a great trip!
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