Ciudad Perdida

A wonderful, sweaty, exahusting, beautiful trip, I must admit. I had been dreaming of hiking up to the Lost City for years now, and finally, this Christmas break, we did it. Nestled in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the Lost City is thought to have been founded in 800 AD, and then re-discovered in 1972 by treasure-seekers. According to Wikipedia, "The hike is about 44 km of walking in total, and requieres a good level of fitness. The hike includes a number of river crossings and steep climbs and descents. It is a moderately difficult hike."

A moderately difficult hike. Some steep climbs and descents.

There were definitely many steep climbs and descents. As I was packing for this hike, I knew I wasn't going to need a clean outfit every day of the hike, thanks to canoe trips with Medeba. I basically figured I'd have two pairs of hiking outfits and two pairs of clean clothes for when we got to the campsites. After all, it was a backpacking trip and I didn't want to be carrying too much stuff. Turns out, I was right.

There was no need for a clean outfit every day. In fact, within twenty minutes of hiking, a combination of the humid, tropical weather and the physical exercise had us drenched in sweat. Might as well start off wearing a damp shirt from the day before...

The days blurred together. My mom was incredibly good at remembering what day we did what as if one stretch of hiking was much different than the other stretch. In my mind, they all strung together... hour after hour after hour. I will try to recount the trip as best I can, but I can't guarantee chronological accuracy.

We spent our first night in hammocks. I remember feeling a slight tremor of excitement surge through me as we all crawled into our hammocks at the edge of the river. Sleeping in hammocks felt so... exotic. We all lay there, inches away from the person on either side... real cocoon-ish, really. Little did we know, it would be a long night. A dreadful night, actually. I had to pee twice and both times, I cringed as my body slammed into Esteban's on one side and my mom on the other. Crawling back into the hammock and letting the hammock slowly still was awful. I hated hearing Esteban groan and roll over and then feel his body nudge mine as he shifted in his sleep. My back was sore; I desperately wanted to shift positions but tried not to, hoping to not disrupt Esteban's sleep.

I awoke to Alejandra's voice, "I'm never sleeping in a hammock again. That was dreadful. Did anyone even SLEEP??" Hahaha. I guess I wasn't the only one. I found out that for much of the night, Esteban and I lay awake next to each other, each trying to move minimally to not "wake" the other. Oh brother. I was ready to get up and get to our next campsite. Exotic sleeping? Check. Once in a lifetime. Thank you very much.

Our next day was pretty grueling. Thankfully, we had fruit stops every couple of hours where our guides rewarded us with an orange, a slice of pineapple or a slice of watermelon. These fruit stops became necessary pit stops. At times, I wondered if I'd make it to the next fruit stop. At one of our fruit stops, we also got to swim in the river. A group of Europeans reached it before us so they were already swimming. I reached into my bag and turned to ask Esteban where he planned on changing into his swimsuit. A woman overheard and replied, "Right here." I started laughing. Yeah, I wasn't planning on changing in front of everyone. I found a large rock, grabbed my towel and decided to be stealthy. Soon, I realized that speed was more important than sneakiness. I just needed to get sweaty clothes off and a dry swimsuit on quick. That's it.

I tip toed into the freezing, mountain water stream and shivered. Esteban was already swimming and decided to be a good friend and "help" me in so I could enjoy the cold water faster. I actually did thank him after being dunked. Soon, Cami and Ale joined us and we enjoyed the feeling of not being sweaty and hot for a while.

That night we slept in bunks. I was delighted. I looked forward to an excellent night of sleep, but for some reason, I tossed and turned most of the night. The next day we were going to be staying at the foot of the Lost City or "Teyuna" in the Kogui language. This segment was exciting. It was less walking and more "trekking;" we climbed over rocks and pulled ourselves over tree roots. The river ran alongside us and I often stopped to take in the breathtaking view. I fell in love with that river.

Playing a variation of Concentration

When we got to that campsite we all kind of felt like playing games. We played variations of Concentration and then Game in a Bowl. It was good fun :) We were staying there on New Year's Eve. I realized that we would most likely NOT make it to midnight that night, knowing that we'd be waking up close to 5:30 am to start hiking up to the Lost City. We decided to celebrate "Irish New Years" in honor of our dear friend Fergus, an Irishman who was put on our team for the hike. We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him on the trip. So, because Ireland is 5 hours later, we celebrated "New Years" at 7:00 pm.

The next morning we woke up bright and early, had a quick breakfast and then were off. We had to climb 1250 stairs to make it to the bottom part of the Lost City. Off we went. At the top, our guide Beto, explained the history and explained the layout of the city to us. And then we went to the top, top and simply enjoyed the scenery. I was absolutely blown away. It was so beautiful. Gorgeous green, lush mountains surrounded us. A waterfall ran down the peak of one. Trees swayed in the wind. It was gorgeous. I would have loved to camp up at the top and enjoy the amazing stars up there, but we couldn't. We had to hurry back, have a quick lunch and then hike back another four hours to another campsite.

And so we went...

That night, our fourth night, our team had a meeting. We had originally planned to do a six-day hike, but our guides told us that most groups did it in five days. Granted, the last day was pretty grueling, but it was possible to do in five days. Instantly, we began thinking about what that would mean. For one, no hammocks. I don't really remember many of our other reasons, because I was so convinced that ANYTHING to not sleep in hammocks was worth it... even 7 hours of hiking. After much negotiating and assuring some that there would be mules they could hire to ride up, we decided we’d complete the hike in five days.

That night, however, Cami spent the night throwing up. Alejandra awoke to a mouse in her bed. I hear everyone had a pretty restless sleep, but I wouldn’t know because I slept soundly. Ooops :) And so off we went the next morning, most people poorly rested. Our guide, Beto, was quite concerned about our slow pace because we were walking a lot slower than most days. We finally reached our halfway point about 45 minutes past schedule. After a quick lunch, we began hiking again. The last hour and a half was pure downhill—brutal. My knees and shins definitely felt it.

Near the very end of the hike there are three river crossings. I had been trying to keep my shoes dry most of the trip, so Pravaas and I began rock-hopping, but I realized that hopping was going to take a long time… and by this point, I simply wanted to get to the end. Ale had plowed through the river and was patiently waiting for us. I sighed, laughed and stepped off my rock and right into the river… The things tiredness will do to you.

We finally got to our starting point around 3:30 that afternoon where they fed us another lunch. Then, they needed some volunteers to go part of the way on motorcycles. Cami and I jumped on that opportunity instantly… and so off we went on the bumpiest road I’ve ever ridden on, hanging on to the back of motorcycles. I laughed at the irony of surviving the trek to the Lost City and then suddenly dying in a motorcycle accident.

When we got to the main road, we waited for everyone else in the chiva to catch up and then we piled in as well. According to Mr. Moyer, we were playing a game… piling as many people into a chiva and then looking for a traffic jam. We found one! Four hours later… we arrived in Santa Marta.

Something strange happens to your leg muscles after hiking for five days, but specifically seven hours that day, and then sitting in a crammed chiva for four hours. We could barely climb the stairs to the apartment we were staying at that night… but we were so thankful to be back… and so grateful to have been able to go.

Group Picture :)

To view a complete album of photos click here.