Ciudad Perdida

After leaving Cartagena I headed for Santa Marta. There I arranged a six day hike through the Columbian jungle to Ciudad Perdida (literally the Lost City). The area was first colonized by the Tayrona in 500 AD and continued until the Spanish arrival in the1600s. The spanish exterminated all of the Tayrona people in the lower valleys of the jungle, but were unable to reach the capital that was built deep within the Sierra Nevadas. However, mysteriously the city was abandoned. Its possible the people starved once they were unable to trade with the lower valley, but the spanish horses were unable to reach the city built on the peaks of the Sierra Nevada. The city wasn´t discovered until 1973 after being completely covered by the jungle for 300 years.

I spent the last six days hiking through the Columbian jungle, surrounded by paramilitaries that protect the cocaine plantations, to reach Ciudad Perdida. It is the most difficult hike I´ve ever done, but one of the best experiences I´ve had on this trip. The two days of rain to the summit only made the hike that much more difficult. The city has a mystic and spiritual quality to it. I am pretty sure I had some semi-lucid dreams the third night that we spent at the top of the city. I was with Mark, my buddy from spanish school in guatemala, three other aussies (Geoff, Damien, and Curtis), Swiss Chris (who was on the Swiss National Skydiving team), Irish Alan (who lives in Switzerland) and two Canadians. We had a crazy little guide named jose who must have weighed 90 lbs, but could carry the same weight on his back (and also loved Uno even though he kept trying to make up his own rules).
The trip was topped off on the way back when we got to go to a cocain factory and see how it is made. I have the recipe if anyone wants it, but first you are going to need 1000 kilos of coca leaves to make 1 kilo of cocaine. The coke money definitely doesn´t make its way to the plantation because this guy only gets a little over a thousand dollars for a kilogram. And he only makes 10 kilos a year. I think he makes more money from showing us how its done than he does from the cocaine. Either way it was pretty interesting.

I´m staying in Taganga, a small fishing village next to Santa Marta right now. Tomorrow Mark and I leave for Venezuela. We are taking all precautions for the ¨lawless¨ border crossing. Going to do some paragliding in Merida and then book it through the Amazon in order to get to Brazil for Carnaval.

Cristobal