Feb. 26 day 11
We had some rain during the night so only clothing that was under the edge of a roof was dry, the rest was still quite wet. We put on our soaked hiking gear, packed the other wet things in plastic bags, had breakfast and set off. The coldness of the clothes barely lasted 10 minutes before we started to heat up from the hike and our sweat would have soaked the stuff in a little more time so no big deal. This was the only rain we saw in the two weeks we spent in Columbia. Dry season indeed.
Wendy woke up covered in bedbug bites. It was surprising, as my mattress and hers were only separated by a few inches on the same board but I had none. The bites were undeniable and I didn't envy her them.
Today was listed as being the toughest day of the hike because of a particularly steep ascent and they weren't kidding. We followed the stream for a bit, having to scramble over rocks. The next section was on land but very narrow. Fortunately, there were newly installed fences between the trail and the dropoff, giving us the additional help of having ropes and wires to hold onto as we hiked. What had been a dusty trail was now a muddy one and the rocks were slippery as we headed up higher and higher.
One of our group ate something bad during our stay in Santa Marta and needed a mule for the first day of the hike. she decided to stay in Wiwa camp until we returned and was asking everyone if they had an extra book they could leave with her, but no luck.
I'm mainly describing the hiking, but every once in awhile you'd snap out of your staring-at-your-feet-and-moving-on mode and look around at the incredible jungle we were in, a few days away from the nearest paved road.
Most places had electricity via generators and a few places even had wifi. Some of the mule trains that passed us had big, green canisters of propane for cooking with. For better or for worse, tourism brings modern conveniences bit by bit. The competition for charging plugs was still pretty fierce during our time there.
Our basic pattern was every hour we'd regroup to make sure that everyone was still with us. The guides took turns being at the front and back of the group. every two hours we'd get a surprise of watermelon or pineapple and oranges. Every four hours we'd stop for a meal (uniformly huge and starch-packed, lots of energy for hiking). There was no pressure to hike faster than you were comfortable doing and people would chat and pant together in changing clumps during the day.
At one place we saw soldiers camped out, giving each other haircuts and taking it easy. Their rifles were leaning all over the camp but they didn't make anyone nervous. We drove through many army raod stops during our two weeks in Columbia but they never hassled us.
At around noon, we arrived in our camp for the night. It was a newer, Wiwa-run one and we were told we would be the only ones using it. It was different in that it was all hammocks which none of our group had done more than nap in prior to today. The facilities were good enough and we had another good meal before deciding on our next move.
We decided that instead of spending the rest of the day lounging and having to get up early the next morning to visit the lost city, we do the 1 1/2 hour hike in the afternoon and have the place to ourselves while we visited it. We had the time and it would make the next day's hike that much easier.
The hike took us across more jungle, though two rivers we had to take off our boots to cross and tehn a final half hour climbing the more than 1000 steps that led to the lost city. These steps were often narrow, always wet and slippery and often so worn they were angled downwards. Many were loose and the slope they made varied from very to insanely steep. Every step had to be watched and regular pauses for catching breath were made as we followed the centuries-old path.
So it felt great when we reached the top. Apparently the site had never been lost but shared amongst the local indigenous people for sacred meetings at various times of the year. A few decades ago, local archeological robbers found the site and spend years tearing it apart and extracted unknown numbers of treasures for black market sales. After that the area was made a park and reconstructed followed by its opening for tourism and ultimately, our arrival there.
Most of the area was covered by large, circular stone terraces of varying sizes and placements. The isolation and surrounding jungle really gave it a presence, on top of the fact of teh hard work we had to do to get there. We were the only ones there besides some soldiers who were permanently stationed there.
Raphael started us off by leading a ceremony where we were all given coca leaves We were to take any negativity and put it into the leaves. Then we were to discard the leaves into a pile and focus on positivity and thus enter the site in a positive frame of mind.
Our guides showed us some marked stones that marked geographic and culturally significant places. He described a few things about then but said that only a mamo could properly interpret the carvings on the stones. A mamo is sort of a holy man. Rafael told us how the high mamos are kept from seeing the sun for 18 years and are kept from women and specially trained to be holy. The details sometimes changed in translation but the idea was that they were treated differently from a young age, exposed to experiences to put them in an uncommon state of mind and looked upon to guide their village and be lifelong spiritual learners.
As we moved from one area to another on the site we invariably had to climb more steep staircases. We had a canine companion all along the day's journey who was christened different names by different hikers. These names were combined into Gordon B Flea Doggie and he followed us until the next day, never begging for food but often getting underfoot as we hiked.
We finally came to our final plateau even though we could see more of the city continue up the hill. The views were excellent and many photographs were taken before our guides came down with our surprise - chips and nuts on a platter edged with Oreo cookies and guava fudge. I only had a bit of the sweet things as I was down to 1/4 cup of water and couldn't afford to eat the salty snacks. i was really looking forward to juicy fresh fruit but they were so proud of their platter I didn't complain.
We took a different back down the lost city which gave us an idea of how sprawling it was. we went by some huts and several more series of terraces of different sizes and configurations with smaller stone trails leading down that were part of their water system.
We all dreaded our return down the 1000+ slippery steps. We went slowly and cautiously with several people slipping but no real injuries. We were already quite exhausted and the descent took all of our remaining concentration. The first ones to the bottom took off their boots to recross the river but once the guides showed up they took everyone across a series of stepping stones so the slower people didn't have to get their feet wet.
We were now pushing sundown and this was not a trail that one would want to navigate in the dark. Parts were difficult but we made it back to our camp just before 6 pm to find that we would be sharing it with several other groups that night. Dinner was excellent as always but it was loud and crowded as everyone tried to get into their hammocks. I found them quite uncomfortable and they were so close together that when anyone moved they set off a series of movements along the row of hammock, just like those rows of silver balls on strings that you put on a desk and pull the one on the end to click the rest of them.
Just as we were nodding off, a loud group arrived and started yelling over us and banging into hammocks. Their guide was the worst of them and they were quite obnoxious as they got their hammocks sorted. Eventually we got back to sleep but this was the worst night for sleeping on the trip after the longest day of hiking we had to do.
We had some rain during the night so only clothing that was under the edge of a roof was dry, the rest was still quite wet. We put on our soaked hiking gear, packed the other wet things in plastic bags, had breakfast and set off. The coldness of the clothes barely lasted 10 minutes before we started to heat up from the hike and our sweat would have soaked the stuff in a little more time so no big deal. This was the only rain we saw in the two weeks we spent in Columbia. Dry season indeed.
Wendy woke up covered in bedbug bites. It was surprising, as my mattress and hers were only separated by a few inches on the same board but I had none. The bites were undeniable and I didn't envy her them.
Today was listed as being the toughest day of the hike because of a particularly steep ascent and they weren't kidding. We followed the stream for a bit, having to scramble over rocks. The next section was on land but very narrow. Fortunately, there were newly installed fences between the trail and the dropoff, giving us the additional help of having ropes and wires to hold onto as we hiked. What had been a dusty trail was now a muddy one and the rocks were slippery as we headed up higher and higher.
One of our group ate something bad during our stay in Santa Marta and needed a mule for the first day of the hike. she decided to stay in Wiwa camp until we returned and was asking everyone if they had an extra book they could leave with her, but no luck.
I'm mainly describing the hiking, but every once in awhile you'd snap out of your staring-at-your-feet-and-moving-on mode and look around at the incredible jungle we were in, a few days away from the nearest paved road.
Most places had electricity via generators and a few places even had wifi. Some of the mule trains that passed us had big, green canisters of propane for cooking with. For better or for worse, tourism brings modern conveniences bit by bit. The competition for charging plugs was still pretty fierce during our time there.
Our basic pattern was every hour we'd regroup to make sure that everyone was still with us. The guides took turns being at the front and back of the group. every two hours we'd get a surprise of watermelon or pineapple and oranges. Every four hours we'd stop for a meal (uniformly huge and starch-packed, lots of energy for hiking). There was no pressure to hike faster than you were comfortable doing and people would chat and pant together in changing clumps during the day.
At one place we saw soldiers camped out, giving each other haircuts and taking it easy. Their rifles were leaning all over the camp but they didn't make anyone nervous. We drove through many army raod stops during our two weeks in Columbia but they never hassled us.
At around noon, we arrived in our camp for the night. It was a newer, Wiwa-run one and we were told we would be the only ones using it. It was different in that it was all hammocks which none of our group had done more than nap in prior to today. The facilities were good enough and we had another good meal before deciding on our next move.
We decided that instead of spending the rest of the day lounging and having to get up early the next morning to visit the lost city, we do the 1 1/2 hour hike in the afternoon and have the place to ourselves while we visited it. We had the time and it would make the next day's hike that much easier.
The hike took us across more jungle, though two rivers we had to take off our boots to cross and tehn a final half hour climbing the more than 1000 steps that led to the lost city. These steps were often narrow, always wet and slippery and often so worn they were angled downwards. Many were loose and the slope they made varied from very to insanely steep. Every step had to be watched and regular pauses for catching breath were made as we followed the centuries-old path.
So it felt great when we reached the top. Apparently the site had never been lost but shared amongst the local indigenous people for sacred meetings at various times of the year. A few decades ago, local archeological robbers found the site and spend years tearing it apart and extracted unknown numbers of treasures for black market sales. After that the area was made a park and reconstructed followed by its opening for tourism and ultimately, our arrival there.
Most of the area was covered by large, circular stone terraces of varying sizes and placements. The isolation and surrounding jungle really gave it a presence, on top of the fact of teh hard work we had to do to get there. We were the only ones there besides some soldiers who were permanently stationed there.
Raphael started us off by leading a ceremony where we were all given coca leaves We were to take any negativity and put it into the leaves. Then we were to discard the leaves into a pile and focus on positivity and thus enter the site in a positive frame of mind.
Our guides showed us some marked stones that marked geographic and culturally significant places. He described a few things about then but said that only a mamo could properly interpret the carvings on the stones. A mamo is sort of a holy man. Rafael told us how the high mamos are kept from seeing the sun for 18 years and are kept from women and specially trained to be holy. The details sometimes changed in translation but the idea was that they were treated differently from a young age, exposed to experiences to put them in an uncommon state of mind and looked upon to guide their village and be lifelong spiritual learners.
As we moved from one area to another on the site we invariably had to climb more steep staircases. We had a canine companion all along the day's journey who was christened different names by different hikers. These names were combined into Gordon B Flea Doggie and he followed us until the next day, never begging for food but often getting underfoot as we hiked.
We finally came to our final plateau even though we could see more of the city continue up the hill. The views were excellent and many photographs were taken before our guides came down with our surprise - chips and nuts on a platter edged with Oreo cookies and guava fudge. I only had a bit of the sweet things as I was down to 1/4 cup of water and couldn't afford to eat the salty snacks. i was really looking forward to juicy fresh fruit but they were so proud of their platter I didn't complain.
We took a different back down the lost city which gave us an idea of how sprawling it was. we went by some huts and several more series of terraces of different sizes and configurations with smaller stone trails leading down that were part of their water system.
We all dreaded our return down the 1000+ slippery steps. We went slowly and cautiously with several people slipping but no real injuries. We were already quite exhausted and the descent took all of our remaining concentration. The first ones to the bottom took off their boots to recross the river but once the guides showed up they took everyone across a series of stepping stones so the slower people didn't have to get their feet wet.
We were now pushing sundown and this was not a trail that one would want to navigate in the dark. Parts were difficult but we made it back to our camp just before 6 pm to find that we would be sharing it with several other groups that night. Dinner was excellent as always but it was loud and crowded as everyone tried to get into their hammocks. I found them quite uncomfortable and they were so close together that when anyone moved they set off a series of movements along the row of hammock, just like those rows of silver balls on strings that you put on a desk and pull the one on the end to click the rest of them.
Just as we were nodding off, a loud group arrived and started yelling over us and banging into hammocks. Their guide was the worst of them and they were quite obnoxious as they got their hammocks sorted. Eventually we got back to sleep but this was the worst night for sleeping on the trip after the longest day of hiking we had to do.
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| Meg celebrates arriving at the lost city with Felix. |
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| Straight out of a Kipling story. |
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| Just a few of the more than 1000 steps that we went up, then down. |
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