After a week of adventure boot camp, Darren and I took an overnight bus to Taganga, a tiny town on the Caribbean coast. We wanted to go on the famed Ciudad Perdida hike, which travelers in Colombia rave about. Ciudad Perdida (¨Lost City¨) is a series of ancient ruins nestled deep in the jungle of the Sierra Nevada mountains, accessible only by foot. You are required to go with a licensed guide, so we signed up with Turcol and ended up in a ragtag group of nine with a people from London, Los Angeles, Seattle, Bogota and France. It felt very much like adult camp. Or the first week of freshman year. After hiking, eating and sleeping together for six days, we became comfortable very quickly and spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the state of our digestive systems. Travellers LOVE talking about parasites and tropical diseases they have acquired/staved off.
The trip cost $230 for the six day hike, all food and accommodation (hammocks) included. Every day except the fourth day (which was spent wandering around the ruins) we woke up around 7am, ate breakfast, and hiked until about 2pm through steamy hot jungle and crossed the river many times. In the afternoon we would have lunch and usually jump into a pristine swimming hole. This left us with a LOT of free time. It´s an interesting social experiment to see how nine adults entertain themselves with no booze (the delicious cheap rum-iodine tablet water-tang cocktails ran out after day 2), no music, no internet and no activities – just birds chirping and pitch black darkness beyond the candle on the camp table. We held insect championships by catching them in plastic cups and trying to force them to interact with each other, vigorously scratched at the hideous number of bug bites we received and had lots of discussions about travel and politics. I led an impromptu yoga class after the Colombians asked me about my idle stretching, and we all received mini-massages from Erin, the masseuse and self-proclaimed ¨hippie plant girl¨from Seattle.
Ciudad Perdida itself was pretty stunning, lots of circular stone ruins set into the green, green jungle. I think we definitely appreciated the effort it took to get there. About forty soldiers patrol the area, and they are all young, friendly and very bored. We heard them shrieking as we climbed the last 1200 steps to reach Ciudad Perdida. When we got to the top we realized what was causing all the commotion – they were taking turns swinging on a vine into the trees, Tarzan style (not paying much attention to their M-16s). Since the last incidence of guerrillas kidnapping tourists in 2003, the government has stationed soldiers there around the clock and it is extremely safe now.
I loved the fact that we saw almost no other travellers during the entire hike. Generally speaking, the only people we passed were indigenous people living in the area. If Colombia continues becoming safer and safer, this hike is going to explode in popularity.
On day six, we returned to Taganga, where I had my first real shower in a week. We became so dirty during the hike that I almost forgot what my skin looked like without mud or hundreds of insect bites from mosquitos, bees, sand flies and spiders. Darren is now calling me ¨refugee legs,¨ with all my cuts, scratches and bites. I have so many bites on my back that several people have taken photos of it (which I am not posting here). But I have to say that despite all this, the hike was totally worth it.
After Ciudad Perdida, we hopped a bus to Parque Tayrona for a few days. Parque Tayrona is a national park on the north coast of Colombia with gorgeous PERFECT Caribbean beaches. We hiked a few hours to the best beaches and slept in hammocks. Waking up in a hammock to the crashing morning waves may sound pretty idyllic, but hammock sleep is not good sleep. You spend a lot of time swatting at bugs and tossing and turning in the hammock, which almost never leads to a comfortable position. But you really can´t beat $5 a night in Colombia, so hammocks won out.
I just arrived in Barranquilla last night for Carnaval, the city with the second largest Carnaval celebration after Rio. I am staying with a friend of Brendan´s in a beautiful, huge apartment. After all that outdoor time I am reveling in clean sheets, chic plateware, air conditioning and Argentinian wine. Life is good.
