La Ciudad Perdida, Colombia - Day 130-133

After loosing so much time in Pasto, the day the protests ended, we decided to bus directly to the northern coast and skip traveling throughout the middle of Colombia. After 42 hours of bus time we finally made it to a town called Santa Marta. Here, we booked a trek to La Ciudad Perdida (The Lost City). La Ciudad Perdida are ruins left over from the Tairona people who lived in the area hundreds of years ago. They built the city in 700 A.D. and had to flee in the 1600s due to the spread of disease from the Spaniards. In order to survive, they were forced to mix with the other indigenous communities in the area. The indigenous groups seen today are the descendants of these people.

The 29 mile trek is normally completed in 5 days, but because most of the 30 people in our group had pre-set arrangements they had to attend directly after the trek, we shortened it to 4 days. In typical rainforest fashion, it rained most of the trip. 4 days of sliding around in ankle deep mud on extremely steep hills is pretty difficult and fun!

Beautiful countryside heading into the trek. These hills used to be covered in coca plants. The locals have customarily chewed on coca leaves, the raw material used to manufacture cocaine, in a practice similar to how we drink coffee, but the U.S. gov't flew planes in and fumigated this whole area as part of the war against drugs. Since coca leaves are neither harmful nor addictive on their own, it's hard to say if it helped prevent cocaine production, or just took away an entire cultures' pastime. Now, the farmers cultivate cacao and coffee.

One of the many stream crossings throughout the trek. The rivers also provided great swimming spots along the way.

Snack time! The guides fed us delicious fresh fruit almost every hour.

Normal sleeping accommodations during the trek; hammocks with mosquito nets over them.

An indigenous community that lives in the area. These kids were racing toward us in hopes of getting some candy.

The beginning of La Ciudad Perdida was comprised of 1,250 stone steps.

All that remains are these round foundations of where their houses used to be and pestle and mortars that they used to grind up plants for food and medicine.

This structure is in the center of the city and was the most important area, because it is where the shaman lived.

Here is a map carved into a huge stone that the Tairona used for navigating the nearby mountains and rivers. The bottom line signifies the ocean.

Yellow-Striped Poisonous dart frog that Kris found hopping across the trail!

The never-ending mud was unlike anything we have ever hiked in.